The Underworld Podcast

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 Sweden's murder rate soaring. But when he took out his right hand man's own mother, it led to a civil war the likes of which Stockholm had never seen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 about Kinahan, to find out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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’s suburbs into warzones. The murder of chart-topping rapper Einár shocked the country, a killing that symbolized how deeply the underworld had bled into mainstream Swedish life. How did one of Europe's safest countries turn into a gangland battleground? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 footage from a famous 1993 bust, we dive into the past, present — and uncertain future — of one of DC’s longest-standing regional feuds, and ask: is it truly all about drugs? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 Honduras, another power was on the rise, forging ties with crooked cops and banking magnates. The Cachiros were a family of cattle rustlers, whose rural smarts and ruthlessness would make them some of the most unlikely leaders in cartel history. But they would fall almost as quickly as they had risen, as US agents went on a rampage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 psychotic enforcer Ramón tried to take out El Chapo at the Guadalajara airport in '93, his gunmen accidentally murdered a Catholic cardinal instead, bringing the full heat of Mexican and U.S. law enforcement down on the family and signaling the beginning of the end for the infamous Tijuana cartel. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 coup-happy transshipment point for years to come. But when Matta took part in the narco world’s most notorious murder, in 1985, his world came crashing down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 it all longer than any agent ever had before...or since. He's the narco world's Donnie Brasco. Journalist Ian Frisch, who co-wrote Suarez's story with him in the newly released Inside the Cartel, joins us for this episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 we know it...until a coke problem and a bloody FBI-backed raid in 1987 turned a remote Mexican village into a war zone. This is the story of the man who pioneered the border drug corridor, leaving a legacy that still shapes the cartel wars today. https://quince.com/underworld for all your clothing needs, use code Underworld at checkout! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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 he REALLY who they say he is? We go deep on what's fact and fiction about a man wanted in half a dozen countries for pretty much every organized crime imaginable. DON'T FORGET TO BUY ASSET!!!: https://www.thatasset.com/underworld Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 partner, it is an emblem of Golden Triangle lawlessness — where drugs, scams and slaves are bartered like chickens, and where billions of dollars disappear into a gigantic dark market. And this year, it has even helped start an international conflict. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 a population that never expected their streets to resemble war zones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 most toughest enforcers and hitmen shocked the underworld by flipping, becoming one of the highest-ranking mobsters ever to turn informant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 were all on the take. But was El Jefe? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 busted it open again? Sean spoke to Bellingcat investigator Peter Barth to find out more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 use to maintain power. From public executions to armored convoys that look straight out of Mad Max, CDN represents the next evolution of cartel warfare. If you want to understand how modern Mexican cartels have evolved, start here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 secretly partnered with the sons of Colombian drug queenpin Griselda Blanco, helping move even more cocaine into the U.S. through direct Medellín Cartel connections. His continued trafficking from prison shocked authorities and cemented his place as one of America's most infamous drug lords. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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 embroiled in two fatal scandals that stained his reputation forever: one a tragic fairground fire, the other a kidnapping and murder that shocked the nation. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

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 megaphone.fm/adchoices