The Underworld Podcast

In this episode, Sean gets into the details about his story for Rolling Stone on Jamal "Shyne" Barrow, the rapper turned prime minister favorite in Belize, from the narco-trafficking taking place to the street side gang wars. Danny reports on Ukraine's intensifying war in the east of the country, and what he's seen on the front lines. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Danny's in Ukraine, and Sean's cover story at Sports Illustrated—about a Sicilian rugby team facing down the Mafia—just dropped. So we're combining the two, first with a rundown of Danny's movements in Kharkiv and beyond - then with an SI Weekly audio documentary about the rugby feature. That part chronicles the trials and tribulations of Briganti, a club in the depressed neighborhood of Librino, "Catania's Bronx", that has fallen prey to Cosa Nostra mobsters in recent years. Founded to keep kids away from crime, the club has come under heavy fire: its clubhouse was torched, team bus destroyed, equipment stolen and bullets fired into its changing room door. But it's going strong—in no small part to a short, bushy-haired agronomist who saw a chance to pull locals off the corners with sport. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For years, Dublin-born Daniel Kinahan built on the work of his heroin-lord father Christy, aka the Dapper Don, to become one of the world's biggest cocaine kingpins. Kinahan fostered some of boxing's brightest talents, including world heavyweight champion Tyson Fury via his Marbella, Spain-based promotion firm and gym, MGM. But in 2016 assassins came for Kinahan on his home turf, kicking off a gang war and sending his cartel into a tailspin. Kinahan decamped to Dubai (where else), and MGM's promotions became MTK...but it continued as the latest in a long line of mob ties with boxing going back to the Luccheses in NYC. Last month the US Treasury slapped a $5m reward on Kinahan's head. Soon after, UAE authorities froze his accounts. Now he's on the run—but his fighters are still going strong. How did one of Europe's top mobsters get such a firm grip on the boxing world? And will Daniel Kinahan live out his fugitive days on an Afghan compound? We spoke to journalist and author Nicola Tallant, who's reported on the Kinahans for years, to find out more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're joined by journalist and writer Peter Ward, whose upcoming book The Price of Immortality: The Race to Live Forever is out this week. Since the times of Gilgamesh, humans have dreamed of living forever. Since the 1960s, when the son of a bank-robbing mobster froze a psychologist (then lost him), cryonics has been touted as a way to be reanimated in decades, or centuries, from now. Except that, as you might expect, cryonics is a shady world populated by hucksters, crooks and, in one, crazy case, a warring Russian couple who employed the services of a Calabrian funeral magnate. Sounds fishy? It is. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1920's, high level gangsters like Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky had a plan to bring some semblance of order to the underworld. Together with a few other kingpins, they formed the Syndicate: a collection of the most powerful organized crime figures across the country that operated like a corporation with a board of directors that voted on everything related to gangsters. To make sure their judgments were respected, they needed an enforcement arm. Enter Murder Incorporated. Emerging from the Happy Maione's Ocean Hill Hooligans and Abe "Kid Twist" Reles Brownsville Troop, this collection of Jewish and Italian hit men would bring new meaning to the term "contract killer," dropping upwards of a thousand bodies across the country in a 10 year span as they carried out the Syndicate's bidding. Men like Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss, otherwise known as Pep, who had a confirmed 30 hits and might have had as many as 100, became some of the most prolific killers the world of organized crime has ever seen. Based on the books "Tough Jews" by Rich Cohen and "Murder, Inc" by Burton Turkus. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here’s a special preview of the new season of Cautionary Tales from Pushkin Industries. On Cautionary Tales, bestselling author Tim Harford shares stories of human error, natural disasters, and tragic catastrophes from history that teach us important lessons for today. In this preview, you’ll hear about the 1981 Hyatt Regency Hotel collapse, a shocking design failure that resulted in 114 deaths and many more injuries. Hear the full story, and more from Cautionary Tales, at https://podcasts.pushkin.fm/ctunderworld. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

*Note: technical difficulties with Sean's microphone this episode, apologies* By the late Seventies Jai Alai, a superfast, racketball-like sport, had become one of the US’ most lucrative betting markets. That attracted Roger Wheeler, a mega-rich Tulsa tycoon, to pour millions into the game. It was also riddled with crime. Boston’s Irish Mob, led by the bloodthirsty James “Whitey” Bulger, would make a mint skimming its earnings and building an underworld empire off Jai Alai’s back. Then Wheeler figured out his latest investment was rotten. Bulger sprang into action, launching a campaign of terror that would claim several lives in gruesome fashion. Eventually, the Jai Alai slayings would bring down drug barons, dirty cops and dozens of New England’s biggest gangsters. Ja Alai wouldn’t fare much better. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We're joined by author Noah Hurowitz to tell the story of Amado Carrillo Fuentes, one of the most powerful narco-traffickers to every live, with an estimated fortune of 25 billion dollars. After having spent his youth learning the ways from the old guard of top-level drug lords, he rose to the top of the Juarez Cartel and became infamous for the fleet of jets he used to transport tons and tons of cocaine. He also became known for his business savvy and negotiation skills, bribing police, military, judges and politicians at the highest level while uniting various traffickers into a federation of cartels. His downfall, though, came at the hands of a hapless plastic surgeon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here's a little teaser from this week's patreon episode, with Sean on the ground in Belize doing a bigger story and sharing some of his work along the way. To get access to bonus episodes for $5 a month, go to www.patreon.com/theunderworldpodcast "John" grew up on the violent South Side of Belize City in the early 2000s, when a vicious turf war between Crips and Bloods tore up the neighborhood. Nowadays, with guns readily available and cartels lurking, it's a different, more dangerous scene. Part of a series on the Central American nation's struggles with organized crime (sorry about the breaks and occasional bus). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the 1980s, as the Soviet empire crumbled, organized criminals eyed up the sprawling VAZ automobile plant in the city of Tolyatti, “Russia’s Detroit.” When it collapsed all hell broke loose. Old-school “thimble kings” battled it out with bodybuilding skinheads, Chechen paramilitaries and the Volgas, partying hotheads who’d become a fearsome mob, for supremacy over one of Russia’s most fabled companies. It’d take hundreds of deaths and Kremlin SWAT teams to bring the bloodshed to an end. A story that we don’t think has been reported in English before, the Tolyatti Car Gang Wars are one of Russian crime’s bloodiest episodes. And given the terrible things they’re doing now, that says a lot. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices