The Underworld Podcast

In the late 1980's, a new gang threw asian immigrant communities across America into chaotic spurts of violence. They were brutal, they were vicious, and they weren't going to play by any of the rules set by any of the established organized crime players. Born To Kill emerged from Vietnam's Lost Generation: child war refugees, often times orphans, who had been left to fend for themselves without a...

Leslie "Ike" Atkinson rose from Army sergeant to international casino hustler, to Bangkok bar owner and quarterback of one of the biggest heroin smuggling rings in history. Recruiting disillusioned black Vietnam vets from his Harlem-themed joint, Ike trafficked billions of dollars of ultra-pure Golden Triangle dope into the States - right under the nose of Uncle Sam. But did he ever smuggle heroin...

We meant to get this up a few episodes back for the 50th episode special but figured it would work for the holidays. Danny and Sean go through all the questions they've received from listeners about the podcast, their careers, and Sean's crippling gambling debts. If you've ever wondered what sort of cricket bets can cost you a finger, this is the episode for you. We'll be back next week with regul...

In Belize City, rival factions of Bloods and Crips clicks have turned the south side of the city into one of the most violent cities on earth in an endless cycle of retaliation. The violence in Belize took off in the 80's and 90's after Belizean immigrants who had joined various Bloods and Crips sets in LA's then burgeoning gang scene got arrested and deported. They brought the gang culture with t...

For decades, New Zealand's biker gangs fought each other for turf, cash and kudos. Violence between its two biggest outfits, the Mongrel Mob and Black Power, often turned deadly, and acts of cruelty shocked the public. Then, in the mid-90s, a new, potent drug worth billions arrived on the country's pristine shores - and with it a wave of foreign narcos looking to take control of what might be the...

Does any country deserve the title of narco-state more than tiny Guinea-Bissau? The West African nation has become the beating heart of the global cocaine trade, with political leaders serving as little more than pawns in a trade that transformed its cashew coast into a gangster’s paradise. And it doesn’t even have any proper prisons! We explore street fights, assassinations, DEA plots, Colombian...

A President assassinated. Amish missionaries from Ohio held for million dollar ransoms (per person!). A former cop named Barbecue turned vicious gang leader in the slums claiming to be a revolutionary with aspirations of political power. And a country held hostage by warring street gangs who now control more than half of the capital city and the flow of essential goods. This is the story of how Ha...

On the smog-filled streets of industrial Birmingham, groups of ‘Peaky Blinders’ earned a reputation as Britain’s most feared gang, terrorizing anybody who stepped in their paths with bats, blades and whatever else they could get their hands on. They ruled the UK’s second city until the turn of the century. Led by Anglo-Irish prizefighter Billy Kimber, what followed them was even more fearsome. The...

Out there in the jungle, something evil and powerful grows. This is the story of Dairo Antonio Usaga, better known as Otoniel, Colombia’s most wanted drug trafficker for a decade. A communist guerrilla turned right wing death squad leader turned cartel boss, he was known for his massacres and predilection for underage girls. He was also known to be particularly brutal, in a way that shocked even o...

In the last 5 years, murders in what's known as Israel's Arab sector have increased 50%, setting new records every year as criminal clans and organized crime have turned cities and towns into fiefdoms run by powerful gangsters who operate with impunity, where guns do most of the talking and Israel’s police are stuck trying to take back territory they abandoned. The clans have moved from extortion...

Khun Sa was a mercenary, a rebel, a warlord and a freedom fighting drugmaker who all-but created the modern heroin industry in the wake of the Vietnam War’s smack epidemic. At one point, the Shan hero, his fiefdom buried deep in the Burmese brush, supplied three quarters of all the gear in America. No wonder Washington called him the ‘Prince of Death.’ But Khun Sa’s path was actually paved by a pr...

When Nicky Louie stalked the streets in the 1970's, he was the first gangster to scare Chinatown in decades. At only 22-years-old, he led his gang of gun-toting teen hitmen known as the Ghost Shadows in countless shootouts against the Flying Dragons. Both street gangs were linked up with the established and secretive community groups known as Tongs that had been operating and controlling Chinatown...

Something a little different this week: No regular episode but we've decided to put the patreon bonus episode up for free. Max Daly, based in London, is the Global Drugs Editor for VICE. The Orwell Prize-winning investigative journalist has freelanced for The Guardian, BBC, Independent and other publications, and his 2013 book _Narcomania_ explored Britain’s booming drug scene. Sean spoke to Max a...

Sweden: ABBA, IKEA, third-wave coffee. A wealthy paradise? For some. For others, the Scandinavian state has become a homicide hotspot, with gun crime and grenade attacks on the rise. We tell the tales of its early Mafia kingpins - from bikers to the feared "Yugo Mafia", Arkan, Jokso and a spate of high-octane, helicopter bank heists. But when the Yugoslavs lost their grip on Sweden, they gave way...

Over the last two decades, the Taliban have moved from simply taxing Afghanistan's opium farmers to controlling every link in the chain of the world's biggest heroin supply. In Afghanistan's Opium Nation, we took you through the history of Afghanistan's opium and heroin industry up until the American invasion in 2001. In this episode, we recap the last 20 years of failed efforts to curtail the cou...

Ulrike Meinhof is dead and the remaining founders of the Red Army Faction, aka the Baader Meinhof Gang, are behind bars in Stuttgart. Is this the end for Germany's most notorious hard-left terrorists? Those who pull the levers of power certainly hope so. But 250 miles north in Cologne, a second generation is gearing up for their most audacious kidnapping plot yet. And on a runway in Mallorca, some...

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 some years producing up to 90% of the global supply. It’s also provided hundreds of millions of all dollars for all sorts of less than desirable entities. Warlords, Druglords, insurgents, rebels, US allies, US enemies and yes, the Taliban. Th...

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 gripped the world and self-declared revolutionary groups rose up, the gang's reign of violence across Germany in the 1970's brought international infamy. Bank Robberies, prison breaks, and the Shah of Iran, what else do you need in a story?...

The Dominican Republic has long been a transshipment for cocaine heading to the United States and Europe. In recent years Dominican traffickers have started playing major roles in the supply chain. Corruption has flourished as local 'capos' have grown more powerful. All of this came to head when iconic and world famous baseball player David Ortiz was gunned down in a crowded bar in the summer of 2...

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 sprawling Marengo Trial that could snare the Netherland’s biggest druglord - and bring the decades-old Mocro Mafia down with him. We get to the heart of the shooting, the history of the hash trade, ports, planes and cocaine - and why even on...

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 to have helped fund the Syrian Civil war, the tiny pills have been showing up in numerous massive shipments confiscated in Mediterranean port cities, often sent by shadowy, high level networks. The pills are all almost exclusively made in S...

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 ensnaring Hong Kong Triads, Outlaws bikers and an ex-US Army sniper’s band of contract killers. But the bust also shone a light on the shady drug network of North Korea, part of a crime machine fuelling the world’s maddest dictatorship. This is...

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 they went to war with the Luccheses, firebombing each other's spots all over New York City. This episode has got failed assassination plots, CIA Training, Fidel Castro, Harlem arson wars, cockfighting, billion dollar numbers rackets, ruthle...

How did an Icelandic band of international drug smugglers pull off their nation’s most shocking heist, robbing millions in Bitcoin mining machines then disappearing into the frozen wilderness? And how did its mastermind (some say: pawn) escape from jail, hop across Europe only to be hobbled by the exact network he’d relied on as a free man? Iceland’s ‘Big Bitcoin Heist’ is a tale of boom and bust,...

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 city in the world. It's a long way from it's previous reputation as the premier vacation destination for the rich and famous with everyone from JFK to Frank Sinatra to Liz Taylor singing it's praises. So how did a tropical paradise go from s...