The Underworld Podcast

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 Lee a prominent criminal defense attorney and Jimmy an outlaw, they gambled millions in Vegas, lived lavishly, and made a lot of enemies, chief among them prosecutors and judges. When...

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 when the two belligerents in its bitter civil war made so much cash ferrying product for Colombian cartels, that they buried their differences and worked together instead. The war e...

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 loyal fans. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 who built his gang Foxtrot into the most formidable drug network in the entire country, all while not even living in Sweden. Using encrypted chats to recruit teenage gunmen, he sent Sw...

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 his hands clean. How did Daniel Kinahan go from Dublin goon to global cartel leader? And how long can he stay out of trouble? Sean spoke to The New Yorker’s Ed Caesar, who’s written...

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 dollars. At the center of the chaos, the bitter feud between Shottaz and Death Patrol, two rival networks whose bombings, kidnappings, and retaliatory shootings have turned Stockholm...

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 exporting fentanyl to the US? Is Nicolas Maduro the head of a global narcotics trafficking organization? And is the Cartel of the Suns actually a thing? Featuring guest interviews and foo...

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 absolutely insane NBA gambling scandal that rocked professional sports recently. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 across the region. Those hopes were dashed almost immediately — and not just by Matta’s family, who carried on his legacy of cartel wheeler-dealing. In the jungles of eastern Hondur...

When the godfather Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo got busted in '89, he divvied up his empire from a prison cell and handed the coveted Tijuana plaza to the Arellano Felix Brothers, who transformed it into one of the most violent drug organizations in Mexico. At their peak, the brothers, led by Benjamin, were pumping an estimated 40 percent of America's cocaine through their border kingdom recruiting...

Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros began life as a pickpocket in his hometown of Tegucigalpa, before heading out on the perilous border roads of Latin America as an emerald smuggler. Soon he was making friends in high places, scoring deals on consignments of cocaine - and connecting coca producers in the Andes with up-and-coming narcos in Mexico. All the while, Matta forged ties with the elites and corr...

Along the blood-soaked border between Mississippi and Tennessee, a ruthless crime empire ruled the night where whiskey flowed, dice rolled, and anyone who crossed the wrong person disappeared into the darkness. The State Line Mob, bankrolled by a hammer-wielding madam and led by a wannabe southern Capone, turned a stretch of highway into America's most lawless strip, where corrupt cops looked the...

Starting at the tail end of the wild cowboy days of 1980's Miami, undercover FBI agent Martin Suarez didn’t just infiltrate a cartel...he nearly rose to the top. As a smuggler, he helped move a billion dollars worth of product while rising through the ranks of the Medellin cartel before moving into the secretive world of elite money launderers for cocaine kingpins. For years, he lived a double lif...

Emerging from Saigon’s system of warlords and narco-pirates, Nam Cam built a criminal empire by making sure everyone — cops, politicians, media — was in his pocket. But that meant that when everything came crashing down, it crashed down hard, and he took out a decent portion of the city’s leadership with him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Pablo Acosta ruled Mexico's drug trade from a dusty border town, turning Ojinaga into a narco-empire that funneled billions in cocaine, weed and heroin into America during the 1980s. Known as the Fox of Ojinaga, he was a ruthless trafficker who taught the narco-world that it was better to buy the authorities than fight them. His dealings with the Colombian cartels changed the Mexican underworld as...

Hun To, the nephew of Cambodia’s former PM, is also the ruler of a criminal empire stretching from illegal logging and Triad-run casinos, to corrupt Chinese investment and — ALLEGEDLY — people and heroin trafficking. Sean met Nathan Southern and Lindsey Kennedy at a Saigon studio to discuss a crazy tale of how the leaders of a small and economically weak nation have gotten wildly rich playing off...

When a London couple were found dead in a lover’s lane, in 1987, evidence pointed quickly at some of the city’s most notorious gangland figures — both established and upcoming. But despite informants and wiretaps the trail ran cold. Then another body showed up. Then another. Before long, cops were connecting the dots between four different killings, all carried out in disturbing fashion across the...

They say Semion Mogilevich is the most powerful gangster on the planet, the mastermind who rewrote the playbook for organized crime worldwide. Boss of bosses in the Russian Mafiya, with a hand in everything from trafficking nuclear material, arms dealing, narcotics trafficking, massive prostitution rings, multiple billion dollar frauds, hundreds of murders, controlling the gas and oil industry in...

Buried on the border of Thailand and Myanmar, Shwe Kokko is a shimmering city of skyscrapers, casinos and fresh-laid highways. But peek a little closer and you’ll see why it has become one of the world’s criminal capitals — from razor-wire fences to keep in thousands of enslaved scammers, to armed rebel guards and a theme park where Chinese high-rollers can shoot military-grade weapons. Shwe Kokko...

In the 1980's and 1990's, America's biggest outlaw motorcycle gangs were looking to expand all over Europe. Unfortunately, they set their sites on the same countries, and they weren't keen on sharing territory. The Great Nordic Biker War erupted in the 1990s as the Hells Angels and Bandidos clashed for control of drug routes and territory across Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. What began as...

Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso was the Lucchese family’s brutal underboss, the brains behind boss Vic Amuso's reign, and architect of one of the Mafia’s bloodiest purges. Together they ruled the Luccheses with paranoia and brute force, wiping out rivals and even dozens of their own men if they sniffed disloyalty or simply didn't like them. Casso personally ordered or committed dozens of murders, turning...

In 1959, when Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries toppled Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, they wasted no time booting out American business owners, casinos and drug kingpins — much to the delight of US law enforcers. But as time passed, and Castro’s socialist regime sought ever-trickier income streams, the Caribbean island proved an irresistible  stepping stone for cartels getting product from the An...

When Bill Richardson, a troubled oilman and pro pigeon shooter, was gunned down on his Corpus Christi doorstep in 1971, everybody assumed it was an open-and-shut organized crime hit. But when Richardson’s supposed killers walked free from court, and another body showed up in the Gulf of Mexico, investigators stumbled on a conspiracy that pitted millionaire gamblers and sharpshooters against the na...

From the ashes of Los Zetas rose the Cartel del Noreste or Northeast Cartel, a brutal splinter group led by the infamous Treviño Morales family and headquartered in the blood-soaked border city of Nuevo Laredo. Known for their military tactics, narco-tanks, and paramilitary wing “Tropa del Infierno” aka the Hell Troop, CDN wages war not only against rivals but against the Mexican state itself. Thi...

In the 1980's, Rayful Edmond rose to infamy as Washington D.C.’s most notorious crack kingpin, building a multimillion-dollar empire by the age of 19. At the height of his reign, D.C. became the murder capital of America, with crack cocaine fueling a deadly wave of violence and addiction. Edmond's lavish lifestyle and ruthless control of the streets made him a legend, and a target. He was arrested...