TheUnderworldPodcast

Stash House Episode 4: Cuban Chicken Heist, Montana Narcos, Bukele’s Second Act

From Helicopter Prison Breaks to Missing Millions: The French Heist Men Who Became Heroes

On the face of it, Toni Musulin and Redoine Faïd couldn’t be more different: one a quiet, skinflint armored vehicle driver, the other a flamboyant gang leader who went on the lam in Tel Aviv disguised as religious.

But the crimes of both men captured French hearts and minds, catapulting them to infamy and prompting some, in the wake of the global financial crash, to describe them as Robin Hoods. But neither man fit that particular bill—even if their money-grabbing plots could’ve ...

The Tiny Carolina Town that Pablo Escobar Made A Deal With

In the 1980's a tiny rural town in North Carolina with a population of around 300 people  made a deal with Pablo Escobar to become a stateside cocaine smuggling hub for the Medellin Cartel. Seriously. We're joined by journalist Joshua Davis who teamed up with Twin Peaks Star Kyle MacLachlan (seriously) to investigate this crazy story in their new podcast, Varnamtown. 

The Headhunting Burmese Tribe Running the World's Biggest Cartel: The Wa w/ Patrick Winn

The Wa tribe, an indigenous tribe residing in the mountainous Burma China borderlands, has long had a reputation as a people not to be trifled with. And yes, they were actually headhunters, well into the 20th century. Known as powerful warriors who weren't keen on outsiders telling them what to do, they were able to carve out their own autonomous state in Myanmar despite the ruling junta's militant authoritarianism,

Long before they launched the powerful United Wa State Army in 1989, va...

Bonus: The Weird World of Criminal Finance: From Fake Firms to Multibillion Dollar Scams With Graham Barrow

Graham Barrow is an experienced banking and finance pro—specifically in compliance, where he’s unearthed all kinds of criminal practices over the years.

He’s also a speaker and adviser on money laundering, offshore fraud and financial crime, and he’s co-host of The Dark Money Files, a show about how quote “money laundering, corruption, bribery, tax evasion enters the financial system and infects everything it touches.”

Stash House Episode 3

Danger in Nassau, a Fijian Megabust, US-China coopeartion on Fentanyl and a crazy trafficking story from the US, UK and India

Ecuador Erupts into Gang Warfare: Prison Kings, Mega-busts and Daylight Executions

This month armed men stormed an Ecuadorean TV station, shocking the world and plunging the nation into gang hell. Prosecutors have been assassinated and gangs are looting offices, universities and even hospitals, as martial law takes hold.

It might seem like Ecuador has gone from Latin American idyll to narco-state overnight. The truth, though, is that it’s been bubbling under the surface for half a century. We dig into the laws, routes, rebels and cowboys that have gotten us here. 2024-01-30 01:30:07 +0000 UTC View Post

Episode 2 of Stash House, Our Weekly Crime Update

Episode 2 of our weekly crime update for subscribers is here, let us know if you like these and if we should keep doing 'em in addition to the patreon interviews. 

Griselda Blanco and Miami's Drug Wars: Netflix's New Narcos

Dubbed the Cocaine Godmother and the Black Widow, Griselda Blanco rose to power when the cocaine boom was taking off and Colombian cartels started pumping product into the US, mainly through Miami. As the floodgates opened and tens of millions of dollars were being made on the streets, everyone wanted to be on top of pyramid, including Griselda...and she was more than willing to have people killed to get there, innocent or otherwise.

Griselda's shooters turned Miami into a war zone as h...

A Note About Audio Quality

The last few episodes have been really substandard, and I want to apologize to you guys for that. They shouldn't be sounding so low quality. We had some screwups on our end regarding the process and quality control. I've re-uploaded the last three main episodes. This won't be happening again. If you do notice a drop off, or sound quality issues, please free to comment here or message us at any time, email, patreon whatever. I'd much prefer to know ahead of time then to keep putting out substa...

NEW BONUS FEATURE: Stash House: A weekly crime roundup

Trying something new here folks, let us know what you think: 

Our first weekly news roundup heads first to Ecuador, where narcos have taken over TV stations, held prison guards hostage and used the famed Galapagos Islands as transshipment points.
Papua New Guinea’s gang-torn capital city Port Moresby descended into chaos last week when cops went on strike. Houthi rebels have—perhaps?—teamed up with Somali pirates in their raids on commercial ships in the Gulf of Aden. And ...

A Cop-Cartel Heist and Sky High Homicide Rates: What the Hell is Going on in Tijuana?

When a team of cops drove a truck laden with Sinaloa Cartel product out of a Tijuana warehouse in November, experts predicted violence even worse than the city had suffered in recent years, as roiling fentanyl and meth industries had made it Mexico’s most dangerous city by far.

The reprisals began just hours later—and they still haven’t stopped. Now, with bodies piling, sex and people trafficking at all-time highs and the golden days of prohibition racetracks a more-than-distant ...

The Kingpin Behind Asia's Triad Super-Syndicate Cartel : Tse Chi Lop, with Josh Berlinger

The mysterious Chinese-born criminal mastermind Tse Chi Lop didn't raise too many eyebrows when he was arrested in Canada in the 1990's for running heroin with the Hong Kong Triads known as the Big Circle Gang in a partnership with the Rizzuto family, a Canadian-Italian mafia clan. But after serving nearly a decade in prison, the laid back, soft-spoken and supremely confident drug lord went about setting up the biggest methamphetamine and synthetic drug cartel in Asia and some say, the world....

BONUS: Reporter Kevin Knodell on the Gangs, Pirates and Illegal Fisherman Causing Havoc on the High Seas

Kevin Knodell is a Honolulu-based reporter with the Star Advertiser. He spoke to Sean about the increasingly dangerous world of fisheries, how drug cartels are getting more and more into the trade, the death of an observer and a trial set to blow Hawaii's organized crime scene wide open.

Sources:

https://www.uscg.mil/Portals/0/Images/iuu/IUU_Strategic_Outlook_2020_F...

New Years Christmas Q+A!!!

Hey, the guys need a break sometimes too. 

Submit Questions for New Years Show

Hey all, we're doing a Q+A for the New Years show, if you have any questions about episodes, assignments, or Sean's personal life, shoot us a message and we'll do our best to answer in next week's show. 

The El Chapo of the Sahel, Azawad and the Sahara’s Most Dangerous Gangs

We do Christmas shows different. Using ancient desert trade routes made famous by megarich kings, narcos, terrorists and arms traffickers have turned the Sahel region into one of the world’s deadliest drug caravans.
In recent years cigarette traders, Tuareg separatists and religious rebels have coalesced into a giant, lucrative underworld. Among its key players, one man stands out—and though his career path is about as apocryphal as the average midnight mass, his impact is no less huge...

Mafia-controlled Ports, Nazi Submarines, and Backroom World War 2 deals with Brendan Sullivan

Long before Pearl Harbor the US had already lost 243 mariners at sea. German UBoats came close enough to NY harbor to sink US merchant ships just by looking for their dark silhouettes against the lights of the city. American bodies washed back to American shores as if they had just gotten stuck in the riptide. The lucky ones were dead on impact. But Some of the U-boats surfaced, collected the survivors and brought them below decks for interrogation before being flung back to sea, shivering ab...

Tony Poe, the Opium Peddling Agent Gone Native Who Inspired Colonel Kurtz

Of all the mad agents running around Laos during the CIA’s Secret War, Anthony Poshepny, aka Tony Poe, was surely the most unhinged. Living in a jungle villa and keeping the heads and ears of communists as trophies, Poe ran illegal missions into Mao’s China, shipped drugs for local tribes, and wound up a violent alcoholic. No wonder folks think he’s the inspiration for Marlon Brando’s insane Colonel Kurtz in Apocalypse Now.

Air America, Corsican Mobsters and Spooks Gone Native - Did the CIA Fuel the Modern Heroin Trade?

At one point in the 1960s Air America was the largest carrier on the planet. It was also a CIA front, and its ragtag pilots ferried tons of raw opium up and down Laos during Washington’s “Secret War” against Communism.
This week’s show gets into the history of the illicit airline, and the corrupt officials, French mob and heroin-producing tribes who won big from AA’s operations—immortalized in the 1990 blockbuster “Air America” (13% rating on Rotten Tomatoes).

Santo Trafficante: Havana Nights, Killing Castro and the Kings of Cuba

The Trafficante crime family ruled Florida for decades, earning the respect and admiration of powerful mobsters like Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky and Sam Giancana. Santo Trafficante Sr arrived in Tampa as a boy from Sicily and took to the underworld with a talent for business, setting up the illegal lottery known as the Bolita before using his Spanish skills to make him indispensable to the powerful five families who wanted to set up shop in Cuba.

When his son, Santo Jr, took the reigns,...

Bonus: Saxon, Drugs and Rock n Roll Down Under

Lloyd Saxon’s brother Ian was a famed Kiwi crooner who moved to Australia and became a big player in its record industry. Soon he was in LA, meeting the most famous musicians on earth and becoming their go-to man for promo and tours down under.

But the Saxon brothers had another, more lucrative business—namely, shipping huge quantities of drugs from the Swat Valley and elsewhere into Australia. What happened next would lurch from police corruption to drug-fueled trips with Bon Jovi...

Sam Bankman-Fried, Slave Compounds and Crypto’s Crooked Heart - with Zeke Faux

Zeke Faux is an NYC-based reporter with Bloomberg Businessweek. His new book, “Number Go Up”, is a wild ride into the criminal heart of cryptocurrency - from missing billions and cartel money-laundering, to Tether, FTX, bros in the Bahamas and crypto slaves in Southeast Asia.

MS-13 and 18th Street: Underworld Classic

No new episodes this week as we're off for Thanksgiving, but enjoy this classic episode about our reporting in El Salvador on the warring street gangs there before Bukele sent everyone to prison. 

From Fantasy Islands to a Coup D’État: The Dominion of Melchizedek

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a fake country and a global scam operation, must be in want of a wife with a penny-stock mining operation who can stalk government officials in their dreams.

In the second instalment of our Dominion of Melchizedek two-parter, the conman mothership ventures out in search of a home; establishes diplomatic relations with fellow micronations; tries to rebuild the Queen Mary oceanliner; and endures a bitter power stru...

Camorra Current Day Bonus Mini Ep

Hey guys, quick little mini-ep with some updates on the current day Camorra clans that wasn't included in the two-part series. 

The Dominion of Melchizedek: The "Mothership for Con Artists Worldwide"

Back in the early 1980s David and Mark Pedley were little more than a father-son real estate scam duo. Then came prison, escape, and a self-penned Bible, named for an obscure Jerusalem priest and the foundation for a micronation called the Dominion of Melchizedek.

It was no ordinary secession movement. The Dominion would become one of its era's greatest swindles, taking in bogus firms, Vegas slots, Hong Kong archdukes and Idy Amin's mansion.

Then, with the backing of a mysterious ...