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The Underworld Podcast

The Underworld Podcast

285 episodes

Underworld exposes the secret world of transnational criminal networks that have flourished since there were banks to bust, drugs to smuggle, and scams to run. Journalists Danny Gold and Sean Williams bring their experience reporting on dangerous people and organizations to take listeners on a global tour of mobsters, warlords and crooks - from Brooklyn to Beijing, from the streets to the boardrooms - and everywhere in between. Underworld is a show about heroes, villains, and the barely visible mafias that affect all our lives, whether we know it or not.

Episodes page 1 of 6

  1. Colombia’s Narco Influencer Showdown

    · 1 h 04 min

    In a city on Colombia’s Caribbean coast, a young man rose through the ranks of a violent paramilitary organization to become one of its key leaders. But that wasn’t all. Throughout, he posted his criminal exploits to…

  2. Cape Town's Bloody Mob Wars: The Steroid King, Dirty Cops, and Numbers Gangs

    · 1 h 01 min

    Cape Town is one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It's also home to one of the most violent and tangled criminal underworlds on the planet, where drug lords, prison gangs, crooked cops, and millionaire…

  3. Cuba’s New Synthetic Drug Wave

    · 1 h 00 min

    How Cuba is Slipping into Drug Chaos Since the beginning of the year, the US has placed Cuba under an oil embargo, crippling its public services and throwing a society that was already on its knees into chaos.…

  4. Cuba: From Lansky’s Casinos to Castro’s Guns

    · 59 min

    Sean got beaten up in Cuba! To celebrate this, we’ve thrown together a biopoly of crime in the tropics, beginning with the story of how American organized crime flocked to Havana in the 1920s as a Prohibition…

  5. Stash House: Cartel Wars, Coke Boats, and Gangs Gone Global

    · 1 h 04 min

    Danny and Sean take another lap around the criminal world, where somehow everything is getting bigger, stranger, and more international. Sinaloa’s cartel war grinds on, Romanian crews allegedly drain millions from…

  6. Assassination Nation: The Balkan Clan War that Took Over Europe

    · 1 h 16 min

    In the picturesque Montenegrin port of Kotor, a cocaine trafficking partnership fractured into one of Europe’s bloodiest gang wars. A dispute over a drug shipment in Spain in 2014 split the organization into two rival…

  7. The Fall & Rise of Pakistan’s Escobar

    · 52 min

    In our final episode on the rise and fall and rise of the Pablo Escobar of Pakistan, he negotiates his own surrender to the DEA, maneuvers his way into the U.S. while dodging Pakistani intelligence agents out to kill…

  8. How an Albanian Mobster Derailed MAGA Island

    · 1 h 05 min

    In Albania's turbulent Nineties, the small, seaside town of Vlore became a gangster’s paradise, playing host to hundreds of crooks ferrying drugs, weapons and people into nearby Puglia alongside Italian mafiosi. One…

  9. The Biggest Unknown Drug Dealer in US History

    · 1 h 11 min

    He might just be the biggest US drug smuggler you’ve never heard of. 1.3 billion in product moved. 16 different aliases. Bank accounts in 10 countries. A phantom, and a logistical genius. Stewart Newton quietly built…

  10. Shafted: How Cartels are Killing for Rare-Earths

    · 45 min

    Bolivia's Cerro Rico has been spewing out tons of silver for centuries. It was the economic bellows of the Spanish Revolution, whose lust for the precious metal came at the price of some eight million slaves. Some of…

  11. The Heroin Warlord of Pakistan: Armed Tribesman, the CIA, & a Smuggling Empire

    · 1 h 03 min

    5000 armed tribesman at his beck and a call. A mountain compound in a lawless territory. A seat in Pakistan’s parliament bought and paid for. And a heroin and hash empire that stretched from the mountains of…

  12. Russian Mercenaries African Drug Empire, Israel’s Sushi Mob war & the murdered Assassin: Stash House

    · 1 h 05 min

    On this episode of Stashhouse: Wagner's leftover mercenaries are running a tramadol empire in the heart of Africa, while in Monaco a bomb takes out a Ukrainian tycoon, then someone takes out the assassin. Grenades, the…

  13. El Mayo Behind Bars: Cartel War, Conspiracy and Narcopolitics

    · 1 h 08 min

    Earlier this month, Sinaloa Cartel mastermind Ismael Zambada García, aka El Mayo, was sentenced to life in prison for his role in growing one of the world’s biggest criminal empires. But while Mayo’s story may be…

  14. Empire of Blood: The Fall of the Godfather of Crime and the Green Gang

    · 47 min

    When his Green Gang goons killed thousands of leftists in 1927’s Shanghai Massacre, Du Yuesheng was welcomed into the political scene of China’s nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek. ‘Big Ears Du’ would then take over…

  15. China’s Mob King Prepares for War

    · 52 min

    By the mid-1920s, Green Gang Boss Du Yuesheng had conquered almost all before him — including his own underworld mentor Huang Jinrong. Shanghai’s opium scene, torn open by British gunboats, belonged to him. But the…

  16. Brazil’s Pablo Escobar: The Ghost

    · 49 min

    They call him Brazil's Pablo Escobar. Sérgio de Carvalho was an elite Brazilian police major who became one of the most wanted drug traffickers on Earth, accused of flying 45 tonnes of cocaine into Europe with his own…

  17. The Last Don: The Godfather Who Turned Rat

    · 56 min

    In 1992, the New York Mafia is falling apart. The Gambinos are in chaos, the Colombos are at war, the Genoveses are hiding behind Chin Gigante’s bathrobe act, and the Bonannos—the forgotten, disgraced family left for…

  18. The Rise of China’s Biggest Mob Boss EVER

    · 55 min

    Born into a peasant family on the outskirts of Shanghai, Du Yuesheng grew up an inveterate gambler and opium addict. But as he forged alliances in the growing metropolis’ underworld, members of a secret…

  19. Chinatown’s Gangster Prince: Shrimp Boy

    · 1 h 12 min

    Raymond “Shrimp Boy” Chow possesses one of the best mob nicknames out there. The San Francisco Chinatown gangster went from teenage immigrant hooligan from the streets of Hong Kong to one of the most infamous Asian…

  20. Redux: Africa's Pablo Escobar: Ibrahim Akasha

    · 59 min

    Ibrahim Akasha was the kingpin of East Africa’s heroin highway, setting up a massive tracking empire that stretched from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran to Kenya, South Africa and Europe. When he was gunned down in…

  21. Sex, Drugs and Shinto: How the Yakuza’s Only Woman Found Redemption

    · 59 min

    When Mako Nishimura, the yakuza’s only female member, fell in love with a rival gangster, it would send her on a long and painful path from drug and sex trafficking, to painkiller addiction and finally a role helping…

  22. Italy Clan Wars, Irish Gangster Politicians & Cartel Nigerian Breaking Bad: Stash House!

    · 1 h 05 min

    On this week's Stash House: A fugitive Dutch cocaine kingpin dodges capture off the coast of West Africa. An Irish gang boss trades gangland warfare for electoral politics. Mexican officials accused of working for the…

  23. The Rise and Fall of The Yakuza Devil's Child

    · 1 h 02 min

    Mako Nishimura graduated from high school delinquent to kamikaze biker gang, street tough and, eventually, a fully made member of a yakuza syndicate - the first (or perhaps second?) woman to do so. Nishimura made her…

  24. The Cartel Del Noreste's Kingdom of Terror w/ Andrew Glazer

    · 1 h 01 min

    Nuevo Laredo is one of the most feared cartel cities in Mexico, a place where disappearances, gun battles, and corruption became part of daily life as the Cartel del Noreste, or CDN, tightened its grip on the border.…

  25. 140 Banks! The Craziest Robbery Crew You've Never Heard Of!

    · 1 h 06 min

    Meet the Stopwatch Gang: three polite Canadian crooks turned bank robbery into a precision sport, hitting over 140 banks across North America and walking away with $15 million without firing a single shot. They wore…

  26. The Uncatchable Outlaw: Greece’s Helicopter-Riding Robin Hood

    · 1 h 04 min

    Vassilis Paleokostas, and his big brother Nikos, grew up shoeless in a Greek mountain village. When the boys moved to a city, they discovered a talent for robbery — and honed it with a mysterious criminal known locally…

  27. El Mencho's Heir Takes Over CJNG!

    · 1 h 00 min

    When Mexican special forces killed El Mencho in February 2026, the throne of Mexico's most powerful cartel was up for grabs. But there's one man who many assumed would be taking over: Juan Carlos Valencia González, a…

  28. The Triple Frontier: Triads, Hezbollah and Narco Heavies

    · 58 min

    When Paraguay extradited French-Corsican heroin kingpin Auguste Ricord to the US in 1972, some thought Paraguay’s narco trafficking days might be numbered. If anything they were just beginning. Within years the tiny…

  29. How a Nazi French Mobster Made Paraguay a Smugglers’ Paradise

    · 1 h 03 min

    The French Connection and Paraguay In 1968, a gang of smartly-dressed gangsters robbed a bank in Buenos Aires. The fallout from the raid would lead authorities in all kinds of crazy directions — from French…

  30. Boston's Irish Mob Gang War: The Winter Hill Gang

    · 52 min

    In 1960s Boston, Buddy McLean ignited a savage gang war after tensions with the McLaughlin brothers boiled over into open bloodshed. What started as neighborhood beef turned into a cycle of ambushes, barroom…

  31. The Trillion Dollar Scam King Gangster Taking Over

    · 1 h 17 min

    When fleets of young Chinese men arrived in the tiny, Pacific nation of Palau in 2018, authorities wondered why they’d eschewed the archipelago’s pristine shores and coral reefs for a handful of tumbledown buildings on…

  32. Daniel Kinahan's Iran Oil Games, The King of the South & Trump's War on Narcos: Stashhouse!

    · 59 min

    We're back with another Stash House and there's a hell of a lot of crazy stuff going on. Daniel Kinahan is spotted in Dubai palling around with a shady oil trader, Sebastian "The King of the South" Marset is bagged up…

  33. The Iraqi-Aussie Gangster Lighting up Melbourne: Kaz Hamad

    · 1 h 06 min

    Melbourne has been gripped by a new wave of underworld gang wars, this time fueled by the booming billion dollar black-market tobacco trade. Firebombings, drive-by shootings, and extortion targeting shops across the…

  34. The Narco Fugitive who Took Over an African Country

    · 53 min

    When a 2023 club brawl ended in a Freetown, Sierra Leone parking lot shooting, cops and reporters pointed the finger at “Omar Shariff,” a portly Turkish millionaire who’d spent much of the past six months throwing cash…

  35. El Mencho Dead! And Mexico Explodes

    · 1 h 12 min

    We told you his life story in our 2022 episode, and now we're back with the sequel. El Mencho rose from poverty to build the CJNG into Mexico’s most violent and influential cartel, trafficking fent, meth and coke…

  36. The Notorious Irish Gangster Who Took on The IRA

    · 1 h 16 min

    Not even the IRA scared Martin "The General" Cahill. He terrorized Dublin with audacious heists that left police scrambling. Rising from the gritty streets of Dublin, he became a criminal mastermind whose crew got so…

  37. The First Gangster Kingpin of New York

    · 1 h 04 min

    Monk Eastman ruled the depraved streets of turn-of-the-century Manhattan with fists and absolutely zero regard for human life, commanding an army of 1,200 thugs who terrorized the Lower East Side. At the height of his…

  38. The OG Yakuza Godfather, Kazuo Taoka

    · 1 h 03 min

    Orphaned and kicked out of work, Kazuo Taoka was an unlikely candidate to become one of postwar Japan’s most important characters. But by combining violence with a talent for legitimate business and corruption, the…

  39. Ryan Wedding Arrest & China's Scam Executions: Stash house!

    · 52 min

    What's going on with the big Ryan Wedding arrest and extradition? The Canadian city that had to declare a state of emergency because of Indo-Canadian gangs extorting everyone. China executes 11 scammers. All that and…

  40. Italy's Unknown 5th Mafia, The Stidda

    · 53 min

    In the late 1970s, as Sicily descended into all-out mafia war, the island’s allegiances split between the ruthless Corleonesi clan, led by Toto Riina, and southern gangsters fed up with Riina’s campaign of murder that…

  41. America’s Craziest Mob Boss (Sort of!) Vincent Gigante

    · 1 h 12 min

    Vincent “Chin” Gigante was the most powerful mob boss in America...and he was also the mob's best performance artist. By day, he wandered Greenwich Village in a bathrobe, muttering to himself, selling the world on the…

  42. The Weed Kingpin who Hired Woody Harrelson’s Hitman Dad

    · 1 h 18 min

    Ever hear about how Woody Harrelson's dad was a hitman who killed a federal judge? The Chagra brothers came up along the El Paso and Juarez border when smuggling weed became one of America's booming industries. With…

  43. A Cocaine War and the World’s Dumbest Bust

    · 57 min

    When the son of Suriname’s president offered to ship drugs and guns for a major terror group in 2013, it was the dimwitted denouement to decades of narco-fueled madness in the small, South American nation — which began…

  44. Crime! Drugs! Cartels! Gangs! Holidays!

    · 47 min

    It's stash house time! We bring you all the news on organized crime, gangs, drugs, cartels and the holidays that you could ever want. And, at the end, Sean shows his feet in a special holiday new years gift to our most…

  45. Sweden's Brutal Gang Civil War: The Kurdish Fox vs Strawberry

    · 1 h 03 min

    In the last few years, Sweden’s gang wars have erupted into a brutal battlefield of shootings, bombings, and shifting allegiances even worse than the decade before. At the center is the Kurdish Fox, a shadowy figure…

  46. The Super Cartel King: Daniel Kinahan

    · 53 min

    In the wake of the EncroChat bust, swaths of the world’s biggest narco traffickers have been swept up by European cops — from Balkan tough guys to Camorra capos. Somehow, though, the man who connects them all has kept…

  47. Sweden's Gangland Child Soldiers

    · 1 h 02 min

    Starting in the mid 2010's, Sweden’s gang wars transformed from neighborhood disputes into a national crisis, driven by splintered immigrant-area crews who now recruit teenage hitmen willing to kill for a few thousand…

  48. War in Venezuela?!?! Narcoterrorism, Maduro and Trump

    · 1 h 17 min

    With gunboats parked in the Caribbean, fast boats blown up, and the White House threatening to invade, we unpick some of the narratives surrounding Venezuela’s regime — and its gangs. Is the Tren de Aragua really…

  49. Mafia NBA Gambling Rings & The Louvre Robbery: A Thanksgiving Special

    · 57 min

    In this special Thanksgiving episode, the guys are in the studio together and do a deep dive on the insane Louvre Heist of the French Crown Jewels. They also get to the bottom of the Mafia rigged poker games and the…

  50. Cattle Rustlers to Cocaine Kings: Los Cachiros

    · 1 h 03 min

    When feds convicted Honduran cocaine kingpin Juan Matta Ballesteros in 1990, authorities hoped it would spell an end to the Central American nation’s growing reputation as a narco state — a status that had caused havoc…

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