The Underworld Podcast

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...

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 Snakehead’s legacy is wound up in legend, conspiracy and lies. Here’s the truth. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 lucrative heists, sometimes stealing tens of millions of dollars worth of diamonds and jewels in less than 3 minutes. Said to be disciplined, cultured and meticulously organized, they've struck in dozens of countries, often times targeting prestigi...

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, making use of the skills they had developed back home. It didn't take long before both groups were on a collision course. As a bunch of 20-something Russian and Ukrainian players started earning more money than they had ever dreamed of, some of t...

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 accusations of corruption and conspiracies that go all the way to the top of Turkish politics, including the current president. After a gentlemen's agreement with the government went south and many of his soldiers got arrested, he fled to D...

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 Italian Mafia families, Native American Smugglers, Hell's Angels, and the Sinaloa Cartel into one massive money-laundering, weed-smuggling, cocaine-distributing organization. And he did it all before he was 30 years old while dating a lingeri...

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 Interpol's "Target One". Perhaps it was a fortune so big it made him the only narco on the UK's rich list. Or perhaps it was the time when, just weeks after emerging from a Dutch prison, he tried to take over an island. Bulgarian wines, county lines...

In the late 1970's when a military dictatorship ruled Brazil, revolutionaries and hardcore criminals formed a collective in a brutal maximum security island prison, giving birth to Brazil's first super gang, the Red Command. Though their political ideals soon melted away, leaving only a ruthless, well-armed network of drug dealers, they would eventually have enough power to take on the state and t...

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 without a trace after getting arrested with a rumored 20 million dollars he had stashed away, never to be seen again. Along the way he took on the Italian mafia and the Black Mafia, importing kilos of heroin from Venezuela with the help of the...

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 led by Abu Bakr and his Jamaat Al Muslimeem followers failed, but many on the island see it as a turning point that has led the murder rate to increase by 400% over the last few decades. Now, a raging war between the Rasta City gang and the...

The "Mafia Shqiptare" was forged during communism, exploded into life during a nationwide pyramid scheme, and unleashed a wave of drugs and violence across Europe from the late 90s. We dive into its most notorious bosses - and how gangs including the 'Hellbanianz' have taken over the UK's lucrative drug scene. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 corrupt cops, politicians and businessmen. But when the judge handed down 344 guilty verdicts, the real chaos was just beginning. We dive into an era of Italian Mafia history-car bombs, daily hits, heroin billions-that looked more like war tha...

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 conspiracy that had scammed hundreds of millions of dollars through pretty simply cyber trickery. From Brooklyn Blood sets using cryptocurrency to facilitate their credit card scams to the Nigerian fraud king Hushpuppi getting busted with 40 mill...

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 gambling and drug rackets for the following decades are among the most sophisticated in the world. At one point, they controlled 80% of the world's global ecstasy trade and partnered with street gangs in Los Angeles to distribute. The Alperons,...

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 architect of the Philippines' blood-soaked drug war, has shot men dead with uzis and fed them to crocodiles. How did he become the country's top man? We take a ride on Manila's gruesome 'Night Shift,' and tell the tale of a showdown betwee...

( 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. Louis, Missouri, which for each of the last **SEVEN** years in a row had has the highest murder rate in the United States. The city just finished 2020 with a record breaking murder rate of 87 per 100,000 people, making it the deadliest city i...