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
Afghanistan's Opium Nation: Drug Lords, Warlords, and Drug Wars
For decades, starting a few years even before the Taliban took power the first time around, Afghanistan has dominated the world’s opium and heroin market, in…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Baader Meinhof Gang's 'Revolution' of Murders, Bank Robberies, & Blowing Themselves Up
The Baader Meinhof Gang, or Red Army Faction, came about as post-war Germany sought to rebuild from the death and destruction of the Nazi era. As the Cold War…
- The Underworld Podcast
DM'ing Dominican Narcos, The Shooting of David Ortiz, & Cesar The Abuser
The Dominican Republic has long been a transshipment for cocaine heading to the United States and Europe. In recent years Dominican traffickers have started…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Murdered Crime Reporter & the Mocro Mafia, Holland's Underworld Kings
On July 6, legendary Dutch crime reporter Peter de Vries was shot in broad daylight on an Amsterdam street. A week later he was dead - another casualty of the…
- The Underworld Podcast
Syria's Narco State, Jihadi Supersoldiers and Hezbollah Traffickers: The Story of Captagon
Multiple billion dollar shipments of the drug known as Captagon have been seized in the last few years as the cheap amphetamine floods the Middle East. Alleged…
- The Underworld Podcast
Inside North Korea's Meth Trafficking: The World's Biggest Narco State?
When a bizarre group of international gangsters shook on a massive meth deal with a DEA agent in Bangkok, Thailand eight years ago, it kicked off a manhunt…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Cuban Mob: Billion Dollar Rackets, the CIA, Lucchese Mafia Firebomb Wars, Miami Cocaine Trafficking and Fidel Castro
Jose Miguel Battle's Cuban Mafia known as The Corporation ran a billion dollar numbers racket with brutal enforcers for three decades, growing so powerful that…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Icelandic Drug-Smuggling Fellowship's Massive Bitcoin Heist
How did an Icelandic band of international drug smugglers pull off their nation’s most shocking heist, robbing millions in Bitcoin mining machines then…
- The Underworld Podcast
Cartel Land: How Acapulco went from Sinatra Singing to Sicarios Shooting
Acapulco has become one of Mexico's, and the world's, bloodiest cities. It saw a stunning 127 murders per 100,000 people in 2019, making it the most murderous…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Snakehead Sister Ping: China's Most Infamous Smuggler
She was the greatest smuggler, a Chinatown hero. Or was she a menace? Sister Ping made millions from those fleeing eastern China to the US. But ‘The…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Pink Panthers: The Secretive Organization of the World's Top Jewel Thieves
Emerging out of the breakup of Yugoslavia, the Balkans-based international thieves known as the Pink Panthers have coordinated many of the world's most…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Russian Mafia's NHL Extortion Play
When the Soviet Union collapsed in the late 80's and early 90's, both gangsters and hockey players headed to America (and Canada!) for new opportunities…
- The Underworld Podcast
Turkey's Mafia Boss Youtube Sensation Trying to Bring Down the State
Sedat Peker has long been a top mafia boss in Turkey, but in recent weeks he's found a new calling: Youtuber. He's taken to youtube and social media to air out…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Billion Dollar Dealer Who Linked Hell's Angels, Mafia Families, Cartels, and Native American Smugglers
Jimmy Cournoyer brought a billion dollars of weed into New York City and the east coast through an organization that brought together the Rizzuto and Bonnano…
- The Underworld Podcast
Curtis Warren, the English Gangster Who Tried to Take Over an Island:
Curtis Warren wasn't known as "Cocky" for nothing. Perhaps it was his rapid rise to the top of Britain's drug trade, becoming Cali's man in Europe and…
- The Underworld Podcast
Brazil's Red Command Rules the Favelas
In the late 1970's when a military dictatorship ruled Brazil, revolutionaries and hardcore criminals formed a collective in a brutal maximum security island…
- The Underworld Podcast
Black Caesar: The Biggest International Black Druglord You've Never Heard Of
Frank Matthews went from a poor boy in North Carolina stealing chickens to running one of the biggest heroin rings America has ever seen before disappearing…
- The Underworld Podcast
Rasta City vs The Muslims: Trinidad's Gang Wars and Abu Bakr's Attempted Coup
In 1990, the tiny Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago saw the only attempted Islamic militant overthrow of a government in the Western Hemisphere. The coup…
- The Underworld Podcast
How Albania's Mafias Took Over Europe (and more)
The "Mafia Shqiptare" was forged during communism, exploded into life during a nationwide pyramid scheme, and unleashed a wave of drugs and violence across…
- The Underworld Podcast
Sicily's Brutal Wars and Mafia Super Trial
The "Maxi Trial" pitted two fearless Palermo prosecutors and turncoat "Pentiti" against the Cosa Nostra, its thuggish leader Toto Riina, and a whole host of…
- The Underworld Podcast
Bitcoin Blood Gangs and The Greatest Scammer of All Time
Early one morning this past June, 6 fully kitted out SWAT teams in Dubai fanned out across multiple luxury buildings. They were targeting a vast criminal…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Car Bomb Wars of the Israeli Mafias
Car bombs, shoulder-fired missiles, grenades and hits across 5 continents; the Israeli mafias that rose up in the 90's and fought each other for control of…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Drug Lords and Killer Cops of the Philippines
Over the last few years, Sean's been on the ground covering the Philippines' brutal drug war amongst the dealers, addicts, and killer cops. Rodrigo Duterte…
- The Underworld Podcast
Murder City USA: St Louis's Record Breaking Murder Rate
( note: we weren't able to record in the studio so audio is off a bit) The murder capital of the United States isn't Chicago, Baltimore or Detroit - it's St…
- The Underworld Podcast
Melbourne's Gangland Killings: The Smiling Assassin Carl Williams w/ guest Sami Shah
Danny is out this week, and Sean is joined by comedian Sami Shah. He came from nowhere to become the murderous king of Melbourne's 'underbelly.' But how did…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Albanian Bronx Crew that took on the Italian Mafia
In the 1990's, a new group of criminals started making their presence known on the streets of New York City: the Albanian mafia. Soon, they earned a reputation…
- The Underworld Podcast
On the Hunt for Burma's Billion Dollar Meth Labs
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
MS-13 Behind the Scenes in El Salvador
In recent years MS-13 has become one of the most feared street gangs in the world, thanks to face tattoos and machetes. Underworld host and producer Danny Gold…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Yakuza Part 2: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Feared Mafia
In part two of our Yakuza deep dive, we plot their post-war rise from hustlers to corporate raiders - and a smack back down to earth. There are wars, kamikaze…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Yakuza Part 1: The Rise and Fall of Japan's Feared Mafia
Is there an organized crime group more iconic than Japan's Yakuza? In part one of two episodes on the group-or web of groups-we plunge into their ancient…
- The Underworld Podcast
Part 2 - The Russian Mafia Comes to Brooklyn
In part 2 of our episode on the Russian Mafia coming to Brooklyn, we are joined by journalist Michael Weiss to continue our story of how mostly Jewish refugees…
- The Underworld Podcast
Part 1 - The Russian Mafia Comes to Brooklyn
The Russian Mafia has been an object of fascination for decades in America, but it only really emerged in the 1980's after mostly Jewish immigrants were…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Merchant of Death: Arms Dealer Viktor Bout
They called him "The Merchant of Death" - the world's most dangerous man. But was gun-runner Viktor Bout actually the arms trade's fall guy? From Angola to…
- The Underworld Podcast
BONUS PATREON MADE FREE: Nigeria's Cults and Revolution with Omoyele Sowore
Building off our Nigerian Cults episode: Omoyele Sowore was attacked by the cults as a student leader, saw them morph into political power, and tried to take…
- The Underworld Podcast
The White Boston Townie Who Became A Chinese Triad Boss
Chinatowns in the United States have never been short on organized crime syndicates, from the early days of secret society tongs to the Triads. In Boston, it…
- The Underworld Podcast
Black Axe and The International Cult Confraternities of Nigeria
They began as freedom-fighting pirates, swashbuckling for African rights. But over the decades Nigeria's confraternities descended into vicious cults. Among…
- The Underworld Podcast
FREE BONUS PATREON EPISODE: COLOMBIAN CARTELS WITH TOBY MUSE
Decided to make this free, it's the first of our many bonus episodes up on the patreon, where we'll focus on interviewing experts, journalists, and…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Brutal Human Trafficking Syndicates of Southeast Asia
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
Dawood Ibrahim, India’s D Company, and the Mumbai Attacks
Few names strike fear into the hearts of Indians quite like Dawood Ibrahim. From a Mumbai slum he built his 'D Company' into the country's biggest mafia. Then…
- The Underworld Podcast
Ireland's Deadly Gang War: The Hutch Kinahan Feud
Tyson Fury, large amounts of cocaine, public executions at press conferences, and Estonian hitmen - Ireland's war between the Hutchs and the Kinahans, one of…
- The Underworld Podcast
Arkan's Tigers and the new Serbian Mafia
Arkan started off a bankrobber and a hitman before becoming the leader of a vicious paramilitary group that committed war crimes. He grew rich off the…
- The Underworld Podcast
The Dangerous Crime Clans of Berlin
Berlin is Europe's party capital. But since the 1980's, another kind of club has taken over the city - and not always quietly. Lebanese-Kurdish "problematic…
- The Underworld Podcast
Trailer
Welcome to the Underworld Podcast, a weekly series where journalists Danny Gold and Sean Williams take you into the secret world of transnational organized…