In East LA, a group of deputies named the Banditos stand accused of running the sheriff’s substation like a gang, institutionalizing a culture of fear and retaliation. And while they’re intimidating civilians and colleagues alike, they may be protected by the very top of the department. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The Compton Executioners allegedly control every aspect of life at the LASD Compton substation. Gang members have been accused of assaulting fellow deputies and even killing civilians, claiming, often without evidence, that they were acting in self-defense. And although they’ve faced several lawsuits, somehow, the Executioners have evaded prosecution — and any accountability. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
By the 1850s, Los Angeles was one of the most dangerous places to live in the West. Extrajudicial killings, unchecked racial violence, and vigilante groups like the Los Angeles Rangers prevailed. This “Wild West” culture seeped into and was propagated by the Sheriff’s Department — and it hasn't gone away. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The community of Lennox in Los Angeles is just one square mile, but it has an enormous problem. Alongside violent gang activity, there’s a secret organization adding terror to the neighborhood. Their symbol? The Grim Reaper. Their ranks? Los Angeles sheriff's deputies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Deputy gangs have been embedded in the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department since 1971. In the first of our five-part collaboration with Parcast series Secret Societies, we delve into the earliest of these violent gangs that shaped the current culture within the LASD. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
After two Melbourne constables were gunned down in 1988, police identified the Pettingills as prime suspects. The case against the notorious crime family grew, but changing testimonies, family betrayals, and the idea of a police vendetta complicated the trial. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
She was a young barmaid who rose to be the ruthless matriarch of a Melbourne crime family in the 1980s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
After the 1988 bust of his Mountain View LSD lab, William Pickard turned to academics and convinced his colleagues he was done cooking acid. In truth, he set up a new lab in a retrofitted Cold War silo and started making LSD by the kilo — becoming the drug’s largest producer in the history of the U.S. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
What happens when a chemistry genius meets 1960s counterculture? After wunderkind William Pickard began taking psychedelics, he became convinced it was his duty to share his experience with the masses… and he started cooking acid. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Racketeering, gun running, contract killing… For two decades, “Whitey” Bulger was the crime king of Boston. But when the walls started to close in around him in the 1990s, he fled — leading to one of the longest manhunts in FBI history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
On the brutal streets of South Boston, James "Whitey" Bulger knew that survival meant leaving nothing off the table. After doing time for bank robbery in 1956, Whitey didn't plan on rejoining the underworld. But a bloody Irish gang war put Whitey on the path to Boston gangland supremacy. And he would do anything to hold onto that power... even ratting to the FBI. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
By the end of the 1990s, Bout’s fingerprints were on almost every conflict in Africa. After 9/11, he saw an opportunity to capitalize on the turmoil in the Middle East—and earned another nickname: The Lord of War. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
When the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s, there was a surplus of weapons and cargo planes collecting dust. One Russian government worker, Viktor Bout, saw the potential of all that discarded equipment. Within a few short years, Bout became one of the most infamous arms dealers in the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
During the 1930s, Albert Anastasia was the leader of Murder Inc., the mafia’s crew of contract killers. But after World War II, he shot his way to the top to become the boss of one of New York’s Five Families. Unfortunately for him, the Feds were more determined than ever to keep the notorious killer in prison for good. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
By the time he immigrated to America just after World War I, Albert Anastasia knew that if he wanted to climb the ranks of New York's underworld, he would have to get his hands dirty. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Forced out of Thailand by his Thai benefactors and the Americans, Khun Sa retreated back to Burma. Once again, he wasted no time in rebuilding his empire and making deals with the Burmese military dictatorship. But in the early 1990s, the various Southeast Asian countries decided that they had had enough of Khun Sa, forcing him to make one final deal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Suddenly under arrest, Khun Sa was forced to rebuild his empire from behind prison walls in Manderlay. He solidified his position as one of the leading drug lords in the Golden Triangle with a daring escape, rebranding himself in the process as a Shan nationalist fighting for separation from Burma. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
By the early 1950s, the teenaged Khun Sa was already a militia leader in war-torn northeast Burma (present-day Myanmar). Over the next decade, his power as a warlord only increased. When the Burmese government came to him with an offer of allyship, he set himself up to become the “Opium King” of the Golden Triangle. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In 1993, Warren handily beat a drug trafficking charge brought against him by British authorities. He spent the next three years rebuilding—and expanding—his empire, importing and exporting drugs all over the world, until Dutch authorities helped bring him down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
After a five-year stint in prison, Curtis Warren emerged stronger, sharper, and more connected. By 1989, he was selling cocaine and ecstasy in Liverpool, and building a network that included the biggest names in the Turkish mafia, Moroccan cartel, even the Triads… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
With the Federation dissolved, his son murdered, and law enforcement closing in, El Chapo fled to where he knew he’d be protected: the mountains of Sinaloa. When he finally decided to re-enter society, a special forces unit was ready. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
From inside prison, with his partners on the outside running logistics, El Chapo turned the Sinaloa Cartel into one of the most successful drug cartels of the 1990s and 2000s. And when he made a daring escape, he only added to his growing folklore. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Before he became the most powerful drug cartel leader in the world, building tunnels to evade authorities and growing his power even from inside prison, Joaquín Guzmán Loera was a small-town marijuana farmer in Sinaloa, Mexico. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Now a made man, Sammy "The Bull" Gravano believed he was destined for success. But as the 1980s rolled around, he became disenchanted with the leadership of the Gambino crime family. And after throwing his support toward the more media-happy John Gotti, he had a crisis of faith that led him to make the ultimate betrayal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
A fierce fighter, Salvatore Gravano proved to members of the Colombo family and the Gambino family throughout the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s that if there was ever someone fully dedicated to La Cosa Nostra, it was him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
He saw himself as an enigmatic spy and went so far as to try to play both sides of the FBI and the CIA. Richard Cain’s later career in international espionage in the 1960s nearly crossed paths with Fidel Castro before once again returning to the mayhem of Chicago—and the mob. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
He was an infamous Chicago police officer and mobster in the 1950s and 60s. The mean streets of Chicago shaped a young Richard Cain during the Great Depression, and landed him on the radar of mob boss Sam Giancana. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
At the start of the 1980s, Barry Mills wanted to turn the Aryan Brotherhood into more than just a prison gang; he envisioned a nation-wide criminal syndicate that trafficked in drugs. Little did he realize that as his empire was booming, the Federal government was monitoring his every move. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
In the mid-1960s, as prisons throughout Southern California were in the midst of desegregation, prison gangs began to form as means for protection across racial lines. One of the gangs was the white nationalist Aryan Brotherhood. And it would go on to be co-lead by a man who very few people knew named Barry Mills. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Today, we’re taking a look at a quote from Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán. The once-leader of the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico, Guzmán used his crime syndicate to sell billions of dollars worth of drugs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
