Kingpins

Today’s quote is from none other than the beloved crooner Frank Sinatra. Throughout his life, Sinatra remained friends with many prominent gangsters. He is also suspected of using his mafia connections to give JFK a leg-up in the 1960 election. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today’s quote is from gangster Guarino “Willie” Moretti. Though he was known as Frank Costello’s “muscle” he had a sharp sense of humor. And when he testified in the Senate’s Kefauver Hearings in 1950, Willie brought that humor with him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the late 1970s, George Jung and Carlos Lehder Rivas would team up to become one of the most infamous trafficking duos in the history of American cocaine. Before they could become professionals though, both men would start from humble origins, padding their resumes out with marajuana trafficking and forays into organized crime. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today’s quote is from bank robber Willie Sutton, known for his gentlemanly manner and for escaping jail multiple times. His crimes eventually earned him a spot on the FBI’s most wanted list. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, we return to a saying you’ve likely heard once or twice before. What you might not know is who coined it: New York math whiz turned mafia accountant, Otto “Abbadabba” Berman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today’s quote is from 1920s and 30s underworld boss, Stephanie St. Clair. During that time, she was engaged in a fierce rivalry with Arthur Simon Flegenheimer, more commonly known as mobster Dutch Schultz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today, we’re recalling an odd moment in the life of Colombia’s “King of Cocaine,” Pablo Escobar. According to his son, when the family was once holed up in one of Escobar’s hideouts in the mountains of Medellin, his father resorted to drastic measures to keep the family warm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today’s quote is from mafioso-turned-informant Henry Hill, an associate of the Lucchese crime “family,” as many Italian mafia outfits are called. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Our first quote is not actually by a criminal—it’s from The Prince by Niccolò Machiavelli, written in 1513. But the book’s principles lie at the heart of every mobster’s philosophy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By the 1960s, Charlie Richardson had London's criminal underbelly in the palm of his hand. This was all thanks to his acumen as a shady businessman and his “Torture Court,” where he judged and punished his enemies. And just as he was ready to go straight, his enemies would have something to say. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

We are thrilled to bring you a brand new episode of Kingpins today and for the foreseeable future. We thank you for your patience during this unprecedented time. As a child in post-World War II South London, Charlie Richardson learned quickly that the path out of working class life was crime. It wouldn't be long before Richardson was running a criminal empire—and instituted his infamous “Torture Court” to keep London's other criminals in line. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By 1905, Joseph Petrosino and his Italian Squad were at war with the nefarious Black Hand. As murder, extortion, and bombings plagued the Italian neighborhoods of New York, Petrosino knew that if he wanted to bring down this dead organization, he would have to get creative. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the mid-1880s, immigrant Joseph Petrosino joined the NYPD as one of the few Italians on the force. Over the next two decades, he proved himself to be one of the most famous detectives in the city. But at the dawn of the 1900s, Petrosino would find himself up against a new kind of threat...called the “Black Hand.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 3000 BCE, coins and paper money hadn't been invented yet. But this was when history's first large-scale pot dealers, known as the Yamnaya, began selling drugs in China and Western Europe—and in the process, changed the course of human evolution. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Due to the unfortunate spread of COVID-19, Parcast has decided to halt recording for the time-being. This is a precautionary measure taken to ensure the safety of our hosts and staff. In the meantime, we're excited to share one of our classic episodes that we know you'll enjoy! By the time he stood trial in 2012, 70-year-old Haji Bagcho had been moving drugs for nearly five decades, and was responsible for 20% of the entire world's heroin supply. But he didn't climb to the top on his own...he had some help from both the CIA and the Taliban. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When John Gotti Senior went to prison in 1992, his son, Junior, tried to keep control of the Gambino Family. But it became apparent to Albanian-American John Alite that his old friend was unfit to lead. Within a few short months, the one-time friends were at war with each other. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the 1980s, John Alite grew up in Queens with a promising career in baseball. But when that career was shattered in college, he returned to his neighborhood and started selling drugs to make money. In no time at all, he was running cocaine and doling out beatings for the Gambino Family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With the Hell's Angels making inroads as a drug dealing empire, Sonny Barger was on top of the world... until his Angels started getting booked on homicide charges. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1963, at the age of twenty-five, Sonny Barger sat at the top of the burgeoning empire known as the “Hell’s Angels.” The outlaw biker club, known for drinking, fighting, and dealing drugs, rose to national infamy alongside the counterculture movements of the 1960s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kingpins listeners… we have some exciting news! Kate has a new co-host, Alastair! If he sounds familiar, it is because he hosts other Parcast shows like Villains and Con Artists. Continue to tune in every Friday to listen to Kate and Alastair on Kingpins! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On the last Sunday of every month, Parcast Rewind replays a classic episode of Kingpins that you might have missed! He had come from nothing, and yet had risen to become Chicago’s most feared and respected crime lord. Everybody knew “Diamond Jim,” and not just for his jewelry and that flashy three-piece suit he always wore. By 1914, Jim Colosimo controlled more than a 100 businesses in Chicago’s Red Light District. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With Al Capone finally behind bars, Eliot Ness needed a new fish to fry. His move to Cleveland, Ohio ended up reshaping his career in the police force, with a very unexpected ending. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As Prohibition amplified chaos in the streets of Chicago, federal agent Eliot Ness took to targeting the city's own mob royalty—Al Capone—in hopes of quashing the bootlegging that lined the pockets of gangsters and crooked cops. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

At age thirty-three, Paul Le Roux had his hands in everything from gold to guns to illicit drugs. By early 2009, his pharmacy network, RX Limited, was bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars. But it was his doomed tuna fishing venture in Somalia that eventually led to his downfall. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He was an expert computer programmer and an early adopter of the internet. In the mid-2000s, Paul Le Roux made millions through online prescription drugs and helped contribute to the current opioid addiction crisis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On the last Sunday of every month, Parcast Rewind replays a classic episode of Kingpins that you might have missed! Frank Lucas found his way into the New York City underworld, and under the wing of a man known as the Harlem Godfather, emerged as one of the most powerful drug kingpins of all time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the other Harlem policy bankers fall at the hands of Dutch Schultz, Stephanie St. Clair stood firm. Unfortunately for St. Clair, Schultz had political muscles and members of the NYPD on his payroll. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

When she was just a teenager, Stephanie St. Clair immigrated to the United States from the French West Indies without a penny to her name. By the 1920s, with $10,000 mysteriously in her hand, she opened up her own numbers racket and became one of the most successful racketeers in Harlem. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Known as the “Ivory Queen,” Yang Feng Glan was a Chinese smuggler who helped move nearly 2-tons of illegal ivory out of Tanzania throughout the 2000s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here’s one of our listeners’ most requested episodes of 2019: By 1983, Rick Ross had risen to become the reigning kingpin of South Central LA. But when he made a deal with a new supplier named Danilo Blandon, he ended up getting into much more than he’d bargained for. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Here’s one of our listeners’ most requested episodes of 2019: In the 1970s, cocaine was seen as a “rich man’s drug” — reserved for the wealthy elites in the Hollywood Hills. That is, until 1979, when 19-year-old Rick Ross found a way to market it to the masses in South Central LA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

To surveil the seedy underworld of organized crime in the 1940s and 50s, a special undercover unit of the LAPD was created to track the city's most notorious gangsters, including Mickey Cohen and Jack Dragna. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

He ruled his family with an iron fist. But among his peers, Carlo Gambino was considered so fair that when he became head of the Commission, he earned the title “Boss of All Bosses.” Throughout the 1960s and ’70s, no criminal decision passed without his say. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After growing up surrounded by the Sicilian mafia in the early 1900s, Carlo Gambino immigrated to America and put the knowledge to use. In an endless hail of bullets, Gambino solidified his status and reputation in the underworld. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 1940, after the charges against Siegel were dismissed for the murder of Harry Greenberg, he reinvented himself in the deserts of Las Vegas and began his sordid affair with Virginia Hill. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No man was feared in New York during the 20s and 30s more than Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel. After teaming up with Meyer Lansky, Bugsy made his bones carrying out vicious murders for the mob. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Even while he was on the run, Dawood Ibrahim continued to rule Mumbai's underworld with an iron fist. But as his riches increased, so did his appetite for violence. And in 1992, his operations expanded into terrorism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Dawood Ibrahim, a young Muslim-born Indian would rise from a small time street thief to gang leader, bringing a more businesss-like—and ruthless—approach. And in the process, he would become one of the richest kingpins in history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

As the 90s approached, it was time for El Patron’s last stand. Many innocent Colombians would die in Pablo Escobar’s war against extradition before he finally reached a compromise with the government. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From multi-millionaire Colombian Congressman to political pariah—once Pablo Escobar’s criminal history was exposed, all bets were off. As his facade of legitimacy in the early 80s washed away, he vowed to take back control using the weapons he knew best: coercion, bribery and violence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

With a violent childhood and mantra of “smuggling, bribery and murder,” witness the beginnings of Pablo Escobar’s cocaine empire in Medellín in the 1970s, and how he expanded it exponentially by joining forces with other Colombian drug traffickers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before becoming “El Patron” and trafficking 80% of the world’s cocaine market, Pablo Escobar was nothing more than a petty criminal on the streets of Medellin. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By 2013, the DEA, FBI, DOJ, and Homeland Security were all after Ross Ulbricht, aka "The Dread Pirate Roberts." His drug website, The Silk Road, trafficked millions worth of drugs every week. So far, Ulbricht remained anonymous, thanks to Tor and the cloak of the Dark Web. Little did he know, the users he thought were his friends were federal agents in disguise. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2011, Ross Ulbricht created The Silk Road, aka "The Amazon of Drugs." Hosted on the dark web and financed by Bitcoin, it was an anonymous marketplace where anyone could buy or sell anything without leaving a trace. Drugs, guns, hacking software, human organs -- the free market utopia quickly made Ulbricht a millionaire. And made him a top target for the DEA. Sponsors! Bombas - Get 20% off your first purchase at Bombas.com/KINGPINS. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thank you for being a loyal listener! We’re excited to announce all Parcast Network episodes older than 6 months are now available for free on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

After being able to hide on the lam for years, Howard Marks was finally caught and forced to answer for his crimes. However, a convincing lie about his supposed involvement with MI6 ensured Marks’ release and allowed him to continue smuggling cannabis well into the 1980s. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

During the 1970s, Howard Marks became one of the biggest cannabis smugglers in Europe. Through a series of networks, which included contacts in the IRA and the Mafia, he was able to bring in upwards of 30 tons of cannabis into the UK and the United States. But after years of anonymity, a single bust in Las Vegas would put him on the DEA’s radar. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mafia life came with plenty of rules, and Anthony Casso loved that. He was a criminal, but an honorable criminal, and his dedication to the Mafia lifestyle took him to the top of the Lucchese family hierarchy. In the mid 1990s, as he faced threats from inside and outside the family, the pressure got to him, and he started to make mistakes. He was taking his violence too far. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anthony Casso was born in Mafia territory in South Brooklyn, and the money-making, wily intelligence, and violence that the "the life" demanded came naturally to him. It was no surprise that he started to climb the ranks of the Lucchese Family as they hit the height of their power in the 1980s. Parcasters - Watergate forever changed the way Americans look at the presidency, but could there be more to the story? Find out today on Conspiracy Theories! Subscribe to Conspiracy Theories on Spotify to listen now! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By the 1970s, the Black Tuna Gang, led by Robert Platshorn, was running the marijuana game out of Miami. But, as internal strife grew out of control and the feds closed in around them, Platshorn's life was headed for a downfall. Sponsors! Bombas - Visit Bombas.com/KINGPINS and get 20% off your first purchase. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices