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PODCAST

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

society & culture documentary

All Episodes

62:31

Cattle Rustlers to Cocaine Kings: Los Cachiros

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/11/18

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 Honduras, another power was on the rise, forging ties with crooked cops and banking magnates. The Cachiros

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61:00

The Tijuana Cartel's Bloody Rise and Fall

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/11/11

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 both rich kids from elite Tijuana families and gangbangers from the states as sicarios. But when

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61:46

The Cartel Puppetmaster: Juan Matta Ballestero

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/11/04

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 corrupt soldiers who’d run Honduras for a century, capturing the small state and ensuring its future as a

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58:22

The State Line Mob: Redneck Mafia

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/10/28

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 other way and violence was the only language spoken.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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79:23

The Cartel World's Donnie Brasco w/ Ian Frisch

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/10/21

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 life inside the most dangerous syndicates, surviving hits, betrayals, and near-death missions. And he did

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42:14

Warlords, Narco-Pirates, & The Gangster King of Vietnam

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/10/14

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

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69:07

The OG Mexican Narco: Pablo Acosta

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/10/07

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 we know it...until a coke problem and a bloody FBI-backed raid in 1987 turned a remote Mexican village

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71:04

Cambodia’s Untouchable Gangster-in-Chief

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/09/30

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 global powers, and proving that for a small number of mobsters, you really can be too big to fail.Learn

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51:27

London’s Corrupt Cops & Gangland Killers: the Epping...

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/09/23

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 British capital. And it looked a lot like the Metropolitan Police, London’s historic force, was directly

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65:06

World's Most Dangerous Mobster: The Russian Mafiya...

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/09/16

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 entire countries and even art fraud. He's allegedly the closest thing there is to Keyser Soze...but is

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70:50

Burmese Warlords, Gangsters & A Scam Utopia

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/09/09

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 is a gangster’s paradise. But not any gangster: the brainchild of a Burmese warlord and his Triad kinpin

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55:49

Europe's Deadliest Biker War: Hells Angels vs the...

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/09/02

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 turf disputes escalated into bombings, shootings, and even attacks with anti-tank weapons o, shocking

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48:25

America's Nightmare Mafia Boss: Gaspipe Casso

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/08/26

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 the family into a machine of fear. But when the law finally closed in, the man who scared even the

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64:51

Fidel Castro: Cuba’s Cocaine Trafficker-in-Chief?

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/08/19

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 Andes through Central America into Florida. Ambassadors, generals, and madcap American financiers: they

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65:32

The Dixie Mafia's Texas Millionaire Murders

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/08/12

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 narcos, conmen and killers of the Dixie Mafia.For decades the case fell cold. But has a reporter just

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54:56

Mexico's New Ultraviolent Narco-Terrorists: The CDN

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/08/05

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. This episode dives into their origins, their iron grip on smuggling routes, and the savage methods they

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55:50

Crack, Chaos, and Cartels: Rayful Edmond’s Empire

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/07/29

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 and imprisoned for life before the age of 25, but his story didn’t end behind bars. In prison, Edmond

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65:30

Australia's Gangster King of Sin: Abe Saffron

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/07/22

Abe Saffron rose from wartime wheeler-dealing to become the king of Sydney’s underworld, a man whose appetite for sex, money and scandal was unmatched by any other Aussie gangster in the swinging Sixties. Saffron paid everybody off, brought Sinatra to Sydney, and hosted Sinatra. He was, in the words of one reporter, “Mr Sin”.But as Saffron’s empire of vice grew, so did the list of those desperate to bring him down — including his own henchmen. And as the Seventies dawned, Saffron would be

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63:24

Africa's Pablo Escobar: Kenyan Kingpin Ibrahim Akasha

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/07/15

Ibrahim Akasha was the kingpin of East Africa’s heroin highway, setting up a massive tracking empire that stretched from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran to Kenya, South Africa and Europe. When he was gunned down in 2000, his sons stepped into the void, hungrier and even more violent...but also, more sloppy. They struck deals with Pakistani mobsters and Colombian cartels, turning Kenya’s ports into gateways for global dope. But their empire crumbled in a DEA sting straight out of a Hollywood

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67:36

The Shaman-Gangsters Who Built Indonesia

The Underworld Podcast ·

2025/07/08

For centuries, brigands, gangsters and street toughs ruled the island of Java so thoroughly that they were woven into local myths. But in the 20th century, when the world bounded towards war, mob bosses in Jakarta spotted a chance to turn underworld kudos into an independent nation.When the war ended, and Indonesia dove into chaos, a handful of kingpins would emerge as the architects of a new, modern state. But the madness was only just beginning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit

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91 results

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