The Underworld Podcast

In recent years, another one of Italy's feared criminal groups has risen above the Sicilian Mafia to become among the most powerful organized crime groups in the world: The Calabrian 'Ndrangheta. Started as a self-defense militia centuries ago to protect against pirates and raiders, the secretive society later morphed into a powerful group of bandits who made their bones through high profile, high profit kidnappings - like snatching the grandson of one of the richest men in the world. Soon enough, though, they wanted in on the real money, which means cocaine trafficking...and that's where Rocco Morabito excelled. Dubbed the cocaine king of Milan, he eventually became one of Italy's most wanted men and went on the run in South America for decades after brokering massive cocaine deals between the cartels and Italian organized crime groups, helping the Ndrangheta control the majority of Europe's cocaine trade. Calabrian crime reporter and journalist Antonio Talia, who grew up in the same area that Morabito hails from, takes us inside the Ndrangheta and the rise and fall of one of the world's biggest cocaine brokers. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last year’s murders of journalist Dom Phillips, and indigenous rights campaigner Bruno Pereira, shocked Brazil and the world. But they were just one violent conclusion to a story of mafias of all stripes—from fish mobs and narcos to KKK-like ranchers and rubber barons—who’ve stalked the remotest corners of the Amazon Rainforest since the turn of the 20th century. Going from gold rushes to the death of famed eco-warrior Chico Mendes, it’s a tale of environmental crime and destruction, plus the growing threat of coca traffickers and urban gangsters, that didn’t just make Phillips’ and Pereira’s deaths a possibility—it made them near-certain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The biggest drug cartel in the world isn't Mexican, or Colombian. It's Asian. Buried deep in the Burmese jungle are networks of cutting edge meth labs, guarded by rebels and run by kingpins so powerful they make El Chapo look like a corner boy. In 2019, Underworld cohost Sean Williams went looking for one of the billion dollar meth labs spending months on the Mekong, in lawless casinos and hunting a drug industry bigger than any other on earth...and now he's a dad! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1990's, Manhattan's booming dance club scene was hit by two massive trends: Ecstasy and Techno. With the eye-patch wearing Canadian nightlife impresario Peter Gatien standing watch, massive clubs like limelight and Sound Factory became debaucherous drug dens ruled over by the ever-weirder club kids. Soon enough, though, a techno pioneer who would later go on to be involved with Wu Tang Clan saw the potential for massive profits and brought in roughneck junior mafia farm teams from south Brooklyn and Staten Island and things starting getting dark, quick. An infamous tabloid murder, a massive mafia bust and a lurid drug kingpin trial followed, but not before some of the major players relocated to Miami for a bit and made a name for themselves there. Once some former associates started talking, however, it all came crashing down, not just for Chris Paciello, but for the top level five family bosses he testified against. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pentecostalism has exploded everywhere—and with it a whole new wave of grifters, crooks and machine gun-toting zealots. Sean spoke to Elle Hardy, author of “Beyond Belief: How Pentecostal Christianity is Taking Over the World”, to learn about some of the movement’s less salubrious characters—beginning with the dark tale of a megapastor’s brutal slaying in Rio de Janeiro, and moving through Central America and even Papua New Guinea, where a new kind of theocratic gangster has emerged. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we bring you guys an episode swap with the good folks at History Daily. In the first segment on February 16, 2003, five thieves break into the vault of the Antwerp Diamond Centre and pull off one of the biggest heists in history. In the second, from January 31, 1874, the outlaw Jesse James and his gang pull off one of the most infamous crimes in the American Old West with the Gads Hill Train Robbery. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Even the best laid plans of mice and men don't stand a chance when the federales get involved. In this episode, Danny recounts the time he linked up with a prominent member of the Sinaloa Cartel's Los Chapitos (El Chapo's kids) faction operating in the Mexican state of Sonora. As the head of the armed faction and a group called The Delta, El Durango was in the midst of a brutal war fighting the Caborca Cartel led by none other than Rafael Caro Quintero of Narcos Mexico fame, otherwise known as El Narco De Los Narcos. El Durango was keen on having visitors with video cameras over to his compound. Some other folks in Mexico, on the other hand, were not. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For thousands of years, Nepali farmers grew some of the world’s trippiest marijuana, in Himalayan valleys so fertile they were considered sacred. In the 1960s western hippies flocked to capital city Kathmandu, and divined wisdom at the thick end of a hash pipe. Nepal was suddenly the world’s cannabis capital. Then Richard Nixon’s White House launched the War on Drugs, and pressured Nepal’s young king to ban the drug. Cops sent the hippies packing, and torched farmers’ cash crops. The result? Poverty, a black market in hard drugs—and a brutal Communist uprising that ripped through rural valleys like wildfire. Today, though, Nepal is poised to legalize weed once more. Sean took a trip from Kathmandu into the Himalayan foothills in search of OG Purple Haze with two former heroin addicts—and got way more than he bargained for. Sound design, scoring and production by the ever-brilliant Dale Eisinger. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For generations, northern Ireland has been no stranger to armed militant groups willing to dispense violence. But whereas those groups once fought over political ideals, now they fight over drug routes and money. Since The Troubles ended and the Good Friday Agreement was signed, the battle-hardened youth of the north have started to put their skillset to use in the drug game. Journalist Adam Doyle breaks down the evolution of northern Ireland's new narco-paramilitaries and the frightening hold they have on their territory. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With slick hair, a wry smile and a penchant for violence, John Griggs was the picture of a Sixties California greaser. His gang caused chaos across Anaheim, and Griggs himself was a habitual user of hard drugs. Until, one night in 1966, they robbed a Hollywood pool party for its acid, Griggs took a bunch, and almost overnight pivoted to becoming one of America's leading proponents of psychadelics—right when hippie culture and the Summer of Love was at its peak. Griggs' cult-like Brotherhood of Eternal Love became a lodestar for America's counterculture—and a gigantic smuggling operation from Mexico and the States, to the so-called Hippie Trail, stashing Afghan and Nepali hash in cars, film reel cans or even surfboards before reaping the thousand-percent markup back home. Griggs' goal was to flood America with so much LSD that every man and woman would get high and help create a new, peaceful utopia. When renowned academic and acid-lover Timothy Leary joined Griggs' cause, the Brotherhood may have looked unstoppable. Then it was stung by disaster after disaster—from hardened criminals and police informants, to Leary's manic downfall and a plucky local cop named Neil Purcell. Part 1 of our show on the Brotherhood of Eternal Love charts John Griggs' irresistable rise to messianic stardom, and his group's creation of a new, potent acid named Orange Sunshine, just before his utopian vision began metastasizing into something most folks would later know as the "Hippie Mafia". Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Wall Street of Patrick Bateman was just ramping up, and rap had taken over the Bronx and Brooklyn as Jamaican-American deejays like Kool Herc were inventing and spreading the new genre. But there was another group of Jamaicans that had come to America with a different plan. As the Cold War played out in 1970’s Jamaica, the two main political parties competing for the country each had a street gang they used to get the vote out in certain neighborhoods and keep the vote from getting out in others. The street gangs grew powerful and skilled in violence, but soon turned their attention from politics to getting paid. And that meant cocaine, and getting cocaine onto American streets. Rival crews like the infamous Shower Posse and the Spangler Posse set up shop all over the East Coast and then the heartland during the heydey of the crack era and soon turned their guns on each other, driving the murder rate to unprecedented heights and fighting bloody battles all over the east coast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For decades the ‘Ndrangheta rose to become the world’s most powerful organized crime group—and barely anybody knew who they were. Then the deaths and defiance of women trapped in their medieval, ultra-patriarchal systems exposed the grim truth behind the ‘Ndrangheta’s centuries-old myths. Alex Perry, author of The Good Mothers, joins us to speak about his discoveries writing the book, Mafia fact and fiction—and the dreaded “Lupara Bianca”, or “White Shotgun”. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1960's, Jamaica's leading politicians saw an opportunity in the street gangs that were forming up in Kingston's slums. Pretty soon, each gang leader, known as a don, had a political party backing him that came calling whenever they needed some dirty work done, some votes turned out or an opposition neighborhood attacked. In exchange, the dons received favors, money and guns, turned their neighborhoods into garrisons and went to war with each other. With the cold war looming in the background, the violence reached a level that shocked everyone...but no one could have expected it would lead to the world's most iconic Jamaican being shot down in his own home. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sydney has long been Australia’s “Sin City”, a pot of gold for crooks with the right connections and friends in the police. But over the past two years an altogether more deadly war has broken out for control of the city’s streets, pitting two Lebanese families and so-called “Postcode Gangs” in a feud that has shocked the nation. And at the top of it all is a fearsome biker-in-exile who has risen beyond even the Italian mob. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

International organized crime has rarely seen a figure as powerful and connected as Vito Rizzuto, Montreal's underworld king. When his father Nic left Italy for Montreal with his 8-year-old son, Nic was a small-timer looking to capitalize on his family connections and Sicilian upbringing. With the Calabrians and Sicilians at each other's necks in Canada's vice capital, Nic eventually worked his way to the top of Montreal's underworld in no small part due to his in-law mafioso contacts in drug trafficking hubs like Venezuela and Sicily. Montreal's heroin king partnered with New York's La Cosa Nostra while paving the way for his son Vito to take over, and Vito proved to be even more capable than his father, doing business with organized crime groups everywhere from Lebanon to China to Venezuela and uniting Montreal's warring factions into a massive unified front...before it all came crashing down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Castor de Andrade might just be the most powerful mobster you’ve never heard of. Born into a life of crime in Rio’s suburbs, he graduated from local lotteries to an empire encompassing Cali and Sicily—and he had his own soccer club. Even Brazil’s military dictators were terrified of Castor. But that didn’t scare off Joao Havelange, son of a gun-runner and a successful businessman who, as chief of FIFA, took a parochial, Eurocentric sport and turned it into a global powerhouse. But as Castor, the country’s “Carnival King”, began eliminating his rivals, the relationship with soccer’s most powerful man turned it—and the game—into something very different. As journalist Conor Powell, host of the Lords of Soccer podcast, tells us, it was a trend that has only gotten bigger today Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Last Resort explores big, crazy, dangerous ideas – ideas that no one took seriously, but which may now be our best options. What would actually happen if we put these ideas into practice? In season one, we ask: what if California seceded from the United States? To do so, we follow the rise and messy fall of Yes! California, the state’s most prominent independence movement. The Last Resort is a timely exploration of political polarization in America, at a time when many Americans feel anxious about the future and don’t understand – at all – the people on the other side of the aisle. With the mid-term elections looming, and actual sitting members of Congress calling for a “national divorce,” we indulge the fantasy of escaping it all. Could we just wipe the slate clean and start over? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-last-resort/id1644754112 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When a fascist killer plunged his sword into Japan’s socialist leader on live TV, few could have predicted its consequences. But gangs of sailor-suited ‘girl bosses’ and pompadour-wearing, ex-kamikaze fighting bikers probably weren’t top of the list. Then again who’d expect Japanese youth, rallying against Yakuza mobsters and corrupt politicians, to birth individuals less mad than Bosos who scream ‘Doki-Doki’ at their foes, and a boss called K-Ko and her weaponized bra? (It’ll make sense in the show we promise) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the story of Pistol Pete, one of the most revered killers to ever walk the streets of New York City, who found infamy after the small click he founded in the Bronx, Sex Money Murda, linked up with a newly burgeoning prison gang federation called the United Blood Nation. Together, both groups would spread up and down the east coast and have such a powerful influence in the streets than 30 years later, one of rap's biggest stars would be linked to them after a massive gang arrest in Atlanta. For bonus episodes, subscribe on itunes or on Patreon at patreon.com/theunderworldpodcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As things heat up in the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, Sean meets soccer journalist Philippe Auclair in a London pub (of course) to talk about the many crimes stalking the Beautiful Game—from bribery and fraud within FIFA, to the covered-up deaths of workers in Doha, and crypto and betting scams that have slipped into the sport’s top tiers. Subscribe for bonuses on Itunes and Patreon.com/Theunderworldpodcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In less than 3 decades, a Brazilian gang formed during a prison soccer tournament has become one of, if not the most powerful gang in all of Latin America, branching out from the jails cells, to the streets of Sao Paolo, to all over Latin America and working hand in hand with groups like the Ndranghetta, Russian mobsters, and a who’s who of global organized crime. This is the story of how the PCC, or The First Command of the Capital, took on the Brazilian state with everything from riots to attacks on police stations, holding the entire city of Sao Paolo, population 20 million, hostage and has since grown outwards in unrivaled expansion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sean met Atlanta crime reporter George Chidi to talk about the city's rap labels and their role in its spiraling gang violence—from Young Thug and Lil Baby to the even more extreme drill scene, and the corruption, poverty and racism that underpins a murder rate far beyond Chicago's. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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When the pandemic took punters from Southeast Asia’s most notorious gambling dens, their gangster owners turned to the web, entrapping thousands of unwitting slaves and putting them to work in high-rises, aiming to scam western marks out of millions. Nathan Paul Southern and Lindsey Kennedy took a trip along the Mekong this summer. What they discovered was incredible and tragic in equal measure—and few are doing anything to combat it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Felix "The Cat" Mitchell was like nothing Oakland had ever seen before. He took over the city's heroin market from, wholesale to retail, driving exotic cars through some of the grittiest streets in America, flanked by his assault rifle carrying lieutenants while keeping massive housing projects locked down like fortresses while dripped out in full length fur jackets and glittering diamonds. He also donated to charities and passed out cash all over east Oakland before it all came crashing down, after his crew attracted a little too much attention from the feds with what came to be known as Oakland’s Bloody August. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When Roberto Calvi's body was found swinging from a London bridge in 1982 it sent shockwaves through the religious, financial and criminal worlds. But who killed him? And how are the Vatican, Italy's powerful Mafia, a secret society called P2 and a Pope's death all linked in this wild, barely believable web of deceit and dollars? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the era of prohibition, Charlie Birger built a bootlegging and gambling empire in southern Illinois, otherwise known as little Cairo. He charmed women, passed out money to children and poor families, bought off all the police and politicians...and killed anyone who got in his way. But he wasn't the only building an army in 1920's rural Illinois. The second iteration of the Ku Klux Klan was on the rise and enacting their own version of vigilante justice, attacking bootleggers, immigrants, and anyone who didn't fit into their version of America. The Birger Gang wasn't having it. War was coming. Danny is joined by Jake Hanrahan of Popular Front. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rainer Sonntag was just your run-of-the-mill, anti-state East German petty criminal—until a black ops team headed by then-KGB agent Vladimir Putin helped turn him into one of Europe's leading neo-Nazi leaders. When the Berlin Wall fell, Putin fled to Saint Petersburg and Sonntag returned to his hometown of Dresden. There he led a gang of skinhead thugs to shake down and beat up foreigners. But when he targeted a downtown brothel, things got bloody real quick. Then he and Putin's legacies really began. Read more about Putin, Sonntag and their violent rises to power in Sean's story for The Atavist, "Follow the Leader" - https://magazine.atavist.com/follow-the-leader-nazi-putin-sonntag-cold-war/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Caviar has been considered a delicacy since ancient times. But when the Soviet Union collapsed, a black market flourished—and kicked off gang wars along the coasts of the Caspian Sea. Then, years later, the caviar mafia came to a tiny Missouri town. But its maritime mobsters hadn't reckoned with an experienced undercover cop and an ingenious plan that would snag them hook, line and sinker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu, better known as Moosewala, was on the cusp of becoming a global superstar. Racking up billions of views on youtube, the Punjabi rapper heavily influenced by Tupac had blown up since arriving in Canada as an international student in 2016. His lyrics about gangsters, guns, and everything that went with it in rural Punjab struck a cord with listeners around the globe. But he wasn't without controversy, sometimes running afoul of the law in India, his shows erupting in violence in Canada. And rumors followed of his involvement in a growing gang war in northern India. And then he got gunned down a month ago in a professional, highly coordinated hit. In the weeks that follow, there will be facebook posts from gangsters claiming credit, big arrests, interrogations, even a shooter caught hiding out with religious pilgrims, and what begins to unravel is a complex web of a gang war ranging from Canada to India that has a man with 700 soldiers at the center of the assassination of a rap superstar turned politician on the cusp of global superstardom Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Bank of Credit and Commerce International was headed by a messianic, Karachi financier named Agha Hasan Abedi, with deep, deep connections all round the world. So deep, in fact, that nearly every criminal mastermind and corrupt ruler in the world used his bank as it went deeper and deeper, turning into a 20 billion dollar bank of the underworld. Abedi had connections to intelligence chiefs and politicians, including officials as far as London and Washington in his deep, deep pockets. His client list, said critics, included the world’s most notorious despots and criminal kingpins—Noriega, Ferdinand Marcos, Saddam Hussein, Pablo Escobar. Some had another name for BCCI - the Bank of Crooks and Criminals—that is, if they live to tell the tale. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before El Mencho or El Chapo, even before Pablo Escobar, there was Ignacia Jasso, otherwise known as “La Nacha.” She was the Queen Pin of Juárez who ran the border heroin trade for 50 years from 1930 to 1980. Declared public enemy number one by the Americans, she still managed to escape the law by pretending to be an evangelical Christian and with the help of some extremely crafty lawyering. Danny is joined by Benjamin Smith, author of The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade to talk La Nacha. Buy The Dope: https://www.amazon.com/Dope-Secret-History-Mexican-Trade-ebook/dp/B08CZ2BW3T Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Over the last three years there's been an explosion of fentanyl on the streets of America and it's led to over 100,000 Americans dying from drug overdoses, the overwhelming majority because of fent. In this episode, Sean lays out the way producers in China have connected with Mexican drug cartels from shipping precursors to laundering money, where Danny speaks on the effects he's seen in the streets of St. Louis. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We’re shaking things up today and sharing a preview from Hot Money, a new podcast from our friends at Pushkin Industries and the Financial Times. When Financial Times reporter Patricia Nilsson started digging into the porn industry, she made a shocking discovery: Nobody knew who controlled the biggest porn company in the world. Now, Nilsson and her editor, Alex Barker, have figured out who the guy was, and much more. Their reporting reveals a shadowy power structure that includes billionaires, tech geniuses and the most powerful finance companies in the world. You can hear more from Hot Money at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/hotmoney?sid=underworld. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode, Sean gets into the details about his story for Rolling Stone on Jamal "Shyne" Barrow, the rapper turned prime minister favorite in Belize, from the narco-trafficking taking place to the street side gang wars. Danny reports on Ukraine's intensifying war in the east of the country, and what he's seen on the front lines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Danny's in Ukraine, and Sean's cover story at Sports Illustrated—about a Sicilian rugby team facing down the Mafia—just dropped. So we're combining the two, first with a rundown of Danny's movements in Kharkiv and beyond - then with an SI Weekly audio documentary about the rugby feature. That part chronicles the trials and tribulations of Briganti, a club in the depressed neighborhood of Librino, "Catania's Bronx", that has fallen prey to Cosa Nostra mobsters in recent years. Founded to keep kids away from crime, the club has come under heavy fire: its clubhouse was torched, team bus destroyed, equipment stolen and bullets fired into its changing room door. But it's going strong—in no small part to a short, bushy-haired agronomist who saw a chance to pull locals off the corners with sport. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For years, Dublin-born Daniel Kinahan built on the work of his heroin-lord father Christy, aka the Dapper Don, to become one of the world's biggest cocaine kingpins. Kinahan fostered some of boxing's brightest talents, including world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury via his Marbella, Spain-based promotion firm and gym, MGM. But in 2016 assassins came for Kinahan on his home turf, kicking off a gang war and sending his cartel into a tailspin. Kinahan decamped to Dubai (where else), and MGM's promotions became MTK...but it continued as the latest in a long line of mob ties with boxing going back to the Luccheses in NYC. Last month the US Treasury slapped a $5m reward on Kinahan's head. Soon after, UAE authorities froze his accounts. Now he's on the run—but his fighters are still going strong. How did one of Europe's top mobsters get such a firm grip on the boxing world? And will Daniel Kinahan live out his fugitive days on an Afghan compound? We spoke to journalist and author Nicola Tallant, who's reported on the Kinahans for years, to find out more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're joined by journalist and writer Peter Ward, whose upcoming book The Price of Immortality: The Race to Live Forever is out this week. Since the times of Gilgamesh, humans have dreamed of living forever. Since the 1960s, when the son of a bank-robbing mobster froze a psychologist (then lost him), cryonics has been touted as a way to be reanimated in decades, or centuries, from now. Except that, as you might expect, cryonics is a shady world populated by hucksters, crooks and, in one, crazy case, a warring Russian couple who employed the services of a Calabrian funeral magnate. Sounds fishy? It is. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1920's, high level gangsters like Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky had a plan to bring some semblance of order to the underworld. Together with a few other kingpins, they formed the Syndicate: a collection of the most powerful organized crime figures across the country that operated like a corporation with a board of directors that voted on everything related to gangsters. To make sure their judgments were respected, they needed an enforcement arm. Enter Murder Incorporated. Emerging from the Happy Maione's Ocean Hill Hooligans and Abe "Kid Twist" Reles Brownsville Troop, this collection of Jewish and Italian hit men would bring new meaning to the term "contract killer," dropping upwards of a thousand bodies across the country in a 10 year span as they carried out the Syndicate's bidding. Men like Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss, otherwise known as Pep, who had a confirmed 30 hits and might have had as many as 100, became some of the most prolific killers the world of organized crime has ever seen. Based on the books "Tough Jews" by Rich Cohen and "Murder, Inc" by Burton Turkus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here’s a special preview of the new season of Cautionary Tales from Pushkin Industries. On Cautionary Tales, bestselling author Tim Harford shares stories of human error, natural disasters, and tragic catastrophes from history that teach us important lessons for today. In this preview, you’ll hear about the 1981 Hyatt Regency Hotel collapse, a shocking design failure that resulted in 114 deaths and many more injuries. Hear the full story, and more from Cautionary Tales, at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/ctunderworld. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

*Note: technical difficulties with Sean's microphone this episode, apologies* By the late Seventies Jai Alai, a superfast, racketball-like sport, had become one of the US’ most lucrative betting markets. That attracted Roger Wheeler, a mega-rich Tulsa tycoon, to pour millions into the game. It was also riddled with crime. Boston’s Irish Mob, led by the bloodthirsty James “Whitey” Bulger, would make a mint skimming its earnings and building an underworld empire off Jai Alai’s back. Then Wheeler figured out his latest investment was rotten. Bulger sprang into action, launching a campaign of terror that would claim several lives in gruesome fashion. Eventually, the Jai Alai slayings would bring down drug barons, dirty cops and dozens of New England’s biggest gangsters. Ja Alai wouldn’t fare much better. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're joined by author Noah Hurowitz to tell the story of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, one of the most powerful narco-traffickers to every live, with an estimated fortune of 25 billion dollars. After having spent his youth learning the ways from the old guard of top-level drug lords, he rose to the top of the Juarez Cartel and became infamous for the fleet of jets he used to transport tons and tons of cocaine. He also became known for his business savvy and negotiation skills, bribing police, military, judges and politicians at the highest level while uniting various traffickers into a federation of cartels. His downfall, though, came at the hands of a hapless plastic surgeon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here's a little teaser from this week's patreon episode, with Sean on the ground in Belize doing a bigger story and sharing some of his work along the way. To get access to bonus episodes for $5 a month, go to www.patreon.com/theunderworldpodcast "John" grew up on the violent South Side of Belize City in the early 2000s, when a vicious turf war between Crips and Bloods tore up the neighborhood. Nowadays, with guns readily available and cartels lurking, it's a different, more dangerous scene. Part of a series on the Central American nation's struggles with organized crime (sorry about the breaks and occasional bus). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1980s, as the Soviet empire crumbled, organized criminals eyed up the sprawling VAZ automobile plant in the city of Tolyatti, “Russia’s Detroit.” When it collapsed all hell broke loose. Old-school “thimble kings” battled it out with bodybuilding skinheads, Chechen paramilitaries and the Volgas, partying hotheads who’d become a fearsome mob, for supremacy over one of Russia’s most fabled companies. It’d take hundreds of deaths and Kremlin SWAT teams to bring the bloodshed to an end. A story that we don’t think has been reported in English before, the Tolyatti Car Gang Wars are one of Russian crime’s bloodiest episodes. And given the terrible things they’re doing now, that says a lot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode thrown together because of a last-minute delay, Danny recounts recent reporting trips to Philadelphia and St. Louis. 2021 saw Philadelphia hit it's highest murder total in history, with 560 homicides when the previous high was only 500. Driving the inordinate amount of gun violence is the Kensington neighborhood, home to the largest open air drug market in the United States that is said to generate over one billion dollars in sales. We also dive into the making of a short documentary on fentanyl in St. Louis, which has quickly come to dominate the entire drug market, and a street dealer gives us the lowdown on his business. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

New York City in the late 1980's and early 1990's was a war zone. The crack era ushered in a record number of murders, topping 2,000 some years, as gangs battled for control of million-dollar corners. One crew stood out among all the crews of killers: The Wild Cowboys, a group of former high school friends who used their connections to the Dominican Republic to expand their territory in the South Bronx. Led by the notorious Sepulveda brothers and following in the footsteps of the Washington Heights-based dealer who allegedly introduced crack to the Big Apple , they left no witnesses or competitors breathing...until a wanton act of violence on the West Side Highway tipped off investigators and led to their downfall. Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/UNDWRLD - Enter promo code UNDWRLD for 83% off and 3 extra months free! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the early Nineties Colombia had one of the world’s best soccer teams. Some even tipped them for 1994’s World Cup in the USA. But the country’s narco mayhem would come crashing down on the squad long before the tournament began. And for the nation’s captain, a tall, stoic defender from Medellin they called ‘The Gentleman’, one on-field mistake would have fatal consequences back home. Featuring gunned-down referees, a deadly cross-country rivalry, Pepes, Pablo and a kidnap-mediating, scorpion-kicking goalkeeper. Get Surfshark VPN at https://surfshark.deals/UNDWRLD - Enter promo code UNDWRLD for 83% off and 3 extra months free! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As badly-planned 1960s projects pushed Glasgow's poorest people to the city's fringes, ice cream vans became a lifeline, delivering food, drink and cigarettes. Before long, gangsters got in on the act, packing out vans with drugs, guns and stolen goods. A war between the city's hell-bent, crucifying 'Godfather' and pretenders to his throne ensued. But it was mostly beer-money "frighteners" and smashed windows. Until somebody committed mass murder, and sent the city into a tailspin. What Glasgow's underworld did next would define Scottish crime for decades. What the police did, might just be worse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The ‘raskol’ gangs that terrorize Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea’s chaotic capital city, have their roots in the isolated, rainforest conflicts of dozens of tribes vying for control of lucrative mineral wealth. But drugs, guns and government corruption means that today’s gang bust-ups, and clan come-tos, are virtually indistinguishable - and threaten to tear the Pacific nation apart. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

SPECAL PROMO: Deep Cover tells true stories of crime and corruption. Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jake Halpern reveals dark underworlds most of us know nothing about. The new season, Mob Land, tells the true story of a high-rolling Chicago lawyer who fixed court cases for the mob. He did this for years... until he decided to betray them and work with the FBI. He wears a wire to expose a black market of corruption—where politicians were bought and justice was sold. Where, for the right price, even murderers could walk free... With first-hand interviews from FBI agents, mobsters, family members, and criminals, the story is truly a wild journey into a world of corruption, murder and deceit. Today, we're sharing a preview of Episode 1. You can listen to the new Deep Cover season now at https://link.chtbl.com/underworlddeepcover Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices