Shows / The Underworld Podcast
The Underworld Podcast
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…
Episodes
- The Underworld Podcast
The Meth SuperCartels Destroying Tropical Paradise
For years the Pacific region, and its tiny, tropical nations, steered clear of the global meth and cocaine trade. But politics, war and wild profit margins…
- The Underworld Podcast
How the Hells Angels Became Canada's Most Powerful Crime Family
The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club first chapter emerged in the US in the 1940's but didn't reach Canada until 1977. Less than 20 years later, they would be neck…
- The Underworld Podcast
El Salvador's War on MS-13: Nayib Bukele Goes Hard
Since 2019, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has smashed the country’s two main gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18, throwing almost 80,000 people into megaprisons and…
- The Underworld Podcast
India's Gangster Assassins Are Running Wild
When hitmen shot dead Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar near Vancouver last June, Canadian cops blamed the government of India’s strongman leader Narendra…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Most Corrupt NYPD Detective & His Mafia Uncle w/Steve Fishman
Louis Sarcella might be one of the most corrupt NYPD detectives ever, though he was once heralded as a master at getting confessions on homicides. A slick…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Gangster Warlords of Haiti's Collapse with Jason Motlagh
Haiti's gangs have effectively taken over the country, plunging into chaos and violence as warring gangster warlords like the infamous Barbeque fight for…
- The Underworld Podcast
El Mayo: The Undisputed King of Mexico & the Betrayal of El Chapo
In the late 2000's, the Mexico government put together a list of dozens of Narco kingpins it wanted to bring down. Only one name from that list is not…
- The Underworld Podcast
El Chapo's Boss & The Most Powerful Kingpin in Mexico: El Mayo
Everyone knows El Chapo, the infamous leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, one time most powerful kingpin that Mexico has ever seen. The man who revolutionized the…
- The Underworld Podcast
Andrew Tate & the Romanian Mob: A Match Made in Criminal Heaven
With influencer and living meme Andrew Tate about to face trial in Romania, we dive into his connections to a powerful pair of Mafia brothers and their casino…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Most Dangerous Russian Mobster America Has Ever Known: Boris Nayfeld
Boris Nayfeld's life is like something out of a movie; orphaned in the former Soviet Union, he served time in a brutal penal colony before establishing himself…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Rise and Fall of Golden Triangle Dope: From a Jailed Kingpin to a Casino Shootout
Lo Hsing Han was a Burmese narco so powerful that Richard Nixon called him a Godfather. But the Kokang king tried one too many shady deals, sending the Golden…
- The Underworld Podcast
Skinny Joey Merlino and The Philly Mob Wars:
Well, they blew up the Chicken Man in Philly last night. And they blew up his house too. And the racket boys, they really did have a fight...a brutal one that…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Zombie Drug Robbery Gangs of Medellin Preying on Dating Apps w/ Toby Muse
Medellin was once the world's most violent city, torn about by Pablo Escobar's murderous cartel warfare and later, Don Berna's meteoric rise to control the…
- The Underworld Podcast
Kokang Cowboys: Burma’s Transgender Narco Royalty, a Secret Army, and a “Special Belt”
Olive Yang—or Miss Hairy Legs, or Two-Gun Mulan, or any number of nicknames folks gave her—was the gunslinging princess of Kokang who bucked the royal yolk to…
- The Underworld Podcast
Digital Hucksters, Crypto Scams and the Internet’s “Enshittification” with Cory Doctorow
From Ponzi schemes to shitcoins, phishing scams and Nigerian princes, we’re living in a golden age of online crime. But hasn’t it always been this way? Cory…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Most Successful American Mobster EVER: Tony Accardo
Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo aka the Big Tuna (!) was one of the most powerful Mob Bosses that the American Mafia has ever seen, sitting atop the brutal Chicago…
- The Underworld Podcast
Listen Now: Varnamtown Episode 1
Two years ago, Kyle MacLachlan, the star of Twin Peaks, called investigative journalist Joshua Davis with a strange story. Kyle had heard a rumor that Pablo…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Bamboo Union Triads, Taiwan's White Wolf Godfather, and a Murdered Reporter in SF
When Chinese-American reporter Henry Liu was gunned down in his Daly City garage in 1984, it brought the Bamboo Union, Taiwan’s most powerful Triad, to global…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Yakuza Boss Caught Selling Burmese Nuclear Material to Iranian Generals (Sort Of)
You may have seen the news last week, about a Yakuza boss caught in Bangkok trying to sell nuclear material to a fake Iranian general. Takeshi Ebisawa and a…
- The Underworld Podcast
She Hunted Down the Zetas Cartel Members Who Killed Her Daughter
When members of the fearsome and brutal Zetas cartel kidnapped her daughter, Miriam Rodriguez did what they asked and paid the ransom. But it wasn't enough…
- The Underworld Podcast
From Helicopter Prison Breaks to Missing Millions: The French Bank Robbers Who Became Heroes
On the face of it, Toni Musulin and Redoine Faïd couldn’t be more different: one a quiet, skinflint armored vehicle driver, the other a flamboyant gang leader…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Headhunting Burmese Tribe Running the World's Biggest Cartel: The Wa w/ Patrick Winn
The Wa tribe, an indigenous tribe residing in the mountainous Burma China borderlands, has long had a reputation as a people not to be trifled with. And yes…
- The Underworld Podcast
Behind Ecuador's Gang TV Takeover: Prison Kings, Megabusts and Daytime Executions
This month armed men stormed an Ecuadorean TV station, shocking the world and plunging the nation into gang hell. Prosecutors have been assassinated and gangs…
- The Underworld Podcast
Griselda Blanco and Miami's Drug Wars: Netflix's New Narcos
Dubbed the Cocaine Godmother and the Black Widow, Griselda Blanco rose to power when the cocaine boom was taking off and Colombian cartels started pumping…
- The Underworld Podcast
A Cop-Cartel Heist and Sky High Homicide Rates: What the Hell is Going on in Tijuana
When a team of cops drove a truck laden with Sinaloa Cartel product out of a Tijuana warehouse in November, experts predicted violence even worse than the city…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Kingpin Behind Asia's Triad Super-Syndicate Cartel : Tse Chi Lop, with Josh Berlinger
The mysterious Chinese-born criminal mastermind Tse Chi Lop didn't raise too many eyebrows when he was arrested in Canada in the 1990's for running heroin with…
- The Underworld Podcast
New Years/Christmas Q + A!!!!!
Danny and Sean jump in on all of your questions for this Christmas New Years week specia; Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
- The Underworld Podcast
The El Chapo of the Sahel, Africa's Desert Trafficking and the Sahara’s Most Dangerous Gangs
We do Christmas shows different. Using ancient desert trade routes made famous by megarich kings, narcos, terrorists and arms traffickers have turned the Sahel…
- The Underworld Podcast
Mafia-controlled Ports, Nazi Submarines, and Backroom World War 2 deals with Brendan Sullivan
Long before Pearl Harbor the US had already lost 243 mariners at sea. German UBoats came close enough to NY harbor to sink US merchant ships just by looking…
- The Underworld Podcast
Air America, Corsican Mobsters and Spies Gone Native - Did the CIA Fuel the Modern Heroin Trade?
At one point in the 1960s Air America was the largest carrier on the planet. It was also a CIA front, and its ragtag pilots ferried tons of raw opium up and…
- The Underworld Podcast
Santo Trafficante: Havana Nights, Killing Castro and the King of Florida
The Trafficante crime family ruled Florida for decades, earning the respect and admiration of powerful mobsters like Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Sam…
- The Underworld Podcast
Slave Compounds, Sam Bankman-Fried and Crypto’s Crooked Heart - with Zeke Faux
Zeke Faux is an NYC-based reporter with Bloomberg Businessweek. His new book, “Number Go Up”, is a wild ride into the criminal heart of cryptocurrency - from…
- The Underworld Podcast
MS-13 and The 18th Street Gang's Reign of Terror
El Salvador's warring street gangs-turned-armies may have finally been broken thanks to the heavy-handed policies of Nayib Bukele dumping anyone and everyone…
- The Underworld Podcast
From Fantasy Islands to a Coup D’État: The Dominion of Melchizedek:
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a fake country and a global scam operation, must be in want of a wife with a…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Dominion of Melchizedek: The "Mothership for Con Artists Worldwide"
Back in the early 1980s David and Mark Pedley were little more than a father-son real estate scam duo. Then came prison, escape, and a self-penned Bible, named…
- The Underworld Podcast
The New Orleans Godfather and the JFK Assassination: Carlos Marcello
Carlos Marcello went from a small time produce hustler to heading up the New Orleans Mafia with a massive gambling empire and a hand in every pie in the city's…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Chechen Mafia Goes Global: Ramzan Kadyrov, Car Bombs, Guns-for-hire and The World's Weirdest Reality Show
The final show in our Chechen trilogy focuses on the republic's current gangster-in-chief, Ramzan Kadyrov, and his rise to become one of the world's most…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Knife Fighting Italian Gangster Who Built an Army while in Prison
The Camorra clans of Naples had always played second fiddle to the Sicilian Mafia and the Calabrian 'Ndranghetta. Until Raffaelle Cutolo started building up…
- The Underworld Podcast
How Russian Mobsters Masterminded a Crazy, Fake Cricket League for Betting Riches: Sean's in the Field!
This May, on assignment for _Sports Illustrated_, Sean visited Molipur, a tiny village in Gujarat, India, to dive into what seemed like a funny caper…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Secret Rise of Female Narcos in Latin American Cartels with Deborah Bonello
Deborah Bonello is a Mexico City-based reporter who's distilled years of reporting on some of the most dangerous women on earth into her new book "Narcas: The…
- The Underworld Podcast
Ex-Con Mercenaries, Wagner, Prigozhin, and the Russian Mafiosos Fighting in Ukraine with Joshua Yaffa
The Russian mercenary/state aligned outfit Wagner emerged from the early days of the war in Ukraine, led by an ex-con turned hot dog salesman turned Putin…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Chechen Mafia Strikes Back: War Profiteering, School Sieges and a Turncoat Named Kadyrov
The Soviet Union is toast, Chechnya is at war and Grozny, its embattled capital, is being bombed to dust. Gangs of Chechen criminals are getting rich off the…
- The Underworld Podcast
Becoming the Chechen Mafia: Ancient Outlaws, Soviet Scabs and a British KGB Plot
In this episode we track the concept of the Chechen Mafia—not an easy thing to define—from ancient invasions and the creation of the "Abrek", or…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Camorra Clans of Naples: Italy's Most Violent Criminal Organizarion
The origins of Naples' feared criminal clans known as the Camorra go back hundreds of years to the days of rural banditry and villa owners with private armies…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Maltese Mobsters who Ruled London's Empire of Vice
The Messina family came from Sicily, then Malta and North Africa, before settling in 1930s London—whose underworld was about to be supercharged by wartime…
- The Underworld Podcast
Los Zetas: The Brutal Cartel Formed By Mexican Commandos
Mexican Cartels have always had a penchant for violence, but the brutal tactics of Los Zetas plunged Mexico into never before seen levels of bloodshed…
- The Underworld Podcast
Bootlegging All Over the World: Illegal Brews from North Korea to Pakistan
The term ‘rumrunning’ might be associated with Prohibition-era goons in the American Midwest. But bootlegging is alive and well today, and this week’s episode…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Brutal Burmese Human Trafficking Syndicates of Southeast Asia: Classic Underworld
Hundreds of millions of dollars have been made by a vicious network of organized crime figures throughout Southeast Asia by preying on what the United Nations…
- The Underworld Podcast
A Romanian Mob Illicit Arms Deal With a Twist - with Trevor Aaronson
Trevor Aaronson is a contributing writer at The Intercept. The second season of his show Alphabet Boys digs into the strange story of Flaviu Georgescu, a…
- The Underworld Podcast
North Korea's Crypto Crimes: Special Episode from Click Here
We have a special episode swap from the good folks at the Click Here podcast. For years, North Korea was known for making such a perfect counterfeit…
- The Underworld Podcast
Ridouan Taghi's Murderous Rampage, and the Cocaine Kings of Antwerp and Rotterdam - with Mitchell Prothero
Mitchell Prothero has been on the tail of Ridouan Taghi, the Mocro Mafia and the Marengo Trial for years—and he joins Sean to discuss "Gateway: Cocaine, Murder…
- The Underworld Podcast
Tiger Traffickers, Narco Zoos and the (Even Darker) Truth Behind Joe Exotic
In 2019 Sean spent weeks on the road between Oklahoma and Miami, investigating roadside zoo owner—and soon-to-be American icon—Joe Exotic. The truth was way…
- The Underworld Podcast
The World's Most Powerful Cocaine Broker: Inside the 'Ndrangheta with Antonio Talia
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 Underworld Podcast
The Robber Baron Mafias of the Lawless Amazon Rainforest
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…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Time Sean Went to Burma to Find A Billion Dollar Meth Lab
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…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Golden Era of Clubs, Club Drugs, and Mafia Crews in NYC Nightlife to Miami and Back
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…
- The Underworld Podcast
A Brazilian Murder, Narco Evangelists and Holy Warfare: The Gangsters of the Global Pentecostal Movement
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…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Antwerp Diamond Heist and the Gads Hill Train Robbery: History Daily Swap
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…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Time the Mexican Army Ruined My Cartel Sleepover
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…
- The Underworld Podcast
Underworld Special - On The Hunt for Himalayan Purple Haze in Nepal
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…