
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 mafias that affect all our lives, whether we know it or not.
Latest episodes

Dec 10, 2024 • 54min
The Human Trafficking Illegal Casino Kingpin Who May Have Been a Chinese Spy
Alice Guo was a Philippine success story, a homeschooled farmhand who rose to become a millionaire business leader. But when Guo ran for mayor of the small town of Bamban in 2022, eyebrows were raised. Sure, she was rich: but how did Guo own a helicopter, $200,000 jewelry and a McLaren sports car?Perhaps she really was an industrial savant. Or perhaps there was something a little more sinister going on, perhaps something to do with the giant offshore gambling complex located a stone’s throw from her mayoral office? Raids and a spell on the run followed. Now Guo faces trial for crimes related to one of the most lucrative criminal markets on the planet. But there’s another question, with impacts far beyond Bamban, the Philippines or even Asia.For Merch: https://underworldpodcast.myshopify.com/Prizepicks: Use Code UNDERWORLD for $50 free after a $5 bet: https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/UNDERWORLD Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dec 3, 2024 • 53min
The Lord High Executioner of Brooklyn: Albert Anastasia
You don't earn a nickname like The Lord High Executioner by not killing a whole lot of people. And Albert Anastasia, one of the most psychotic gangsters to ever come out of New York City, was alleged to have participated in at least 60 murders as part of his role as one of the leaders of Murder, Inc., the hitmen organization that Lucky Luciano and the other members of The Commission tasked with doling out mafia justice.Anastasia's rise to power in the violent mob wars of the 1920's and 1930's is the stuff of mafia lore, but there is such as thing as being too violent, even for someone who became the boss of one of the five families. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nov 26, 2024 • 1h 2min
The Sinaloa Cartel Civil War Raging in Mexico: Los Chapitos vs El Mayo w/Nathan Jones
Sinaloa’s capital Culiacan is roiling with violence in the wake of El Mayo’s capture, and his alleged betrayal at the hands of the Chapitos.But the bloodshed is just part of an ever-changing drug landscape, that’s increasingly dominated by the Sinaloa factions and the CJNG. How do these two organizations work? How can they work together? And what on earth can Mexico’s new president do to stop the bullets from flying? Sean spoke to expert Nathan P. Jones to find out.MERCH: https://underworldpodcast.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nov 19, 2024 • 58min
Peru's Shining Path Narco Terrorists: From Commie Civil War to Cartel Muscle
Peru’s Shining Path, a Marxist-Maoist guerrilla force, plunged the Andean nation into a two-decade civil war that put villagers of the VRAEM, a remote, coca-producing region, on its bloody frontline.The Peruvian government captured the movement’s despotic leader, and the war died. But the rebels switched gears, protecting coca shipments from Peru’s interior to its coast, and out across Latin America.Today the VRAEM is the global trade’s ground zero — even for the leaves that make their way, via an odd, winding journey, into Coca-Cola bottles worldwide. And the Shining Path, though weakened, are still among the embattled region’s biggest players. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nov 12, 2024 • 54min
The Bloody Turkish Mafia War Raging Across the World
With their leader sentenced to life in a Dutch prison, the most powerful heroin trafficking organzation in Europe, the Turkish-Kurdish Baybasin clan, wasn't about to call it quits. Younger brother Abdullah Baybasin set out to control the streets of North London with his feared crew of Hackney Bombers. But another powerful gang, the Tottenham Turks, and the met police investigators, had other ideas.Two decades later, control of Europe's heroin market is once again facing instability, as the Taliban banning opium production in Afghanistan has set the entire market in flux. Hitman are roaming Europe, striking in Moldova, Barcelona, London and elsewhere. But it's not just massive amounts of heroin moving through Turkey anymore, as many of the gangs are connecting with cartels in Latin America and making the switch to cocaine.SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS!Cancel your unwanted subscriptions by going to RocketMoney.com/UNDERWORLD.Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com/underworld. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Nov 5, 2024 • 1h 4min
Europe's Pablo Escobar: The Heroin Emperor Huseyin Baybashin
From a village in rural Turkey, Huseyin Baybasin emerged as one of the most powerful drug lords in Europe, setting up a global heroin trafficking ring. Stepping into the vacuum left by the downfall of the French Connection, Baybasin and his clan, dubbed "The Family," brought in billions of dollars of opium from Afghanistan through Iran and smuggled into Turkey before it headed to western Europe on the so-called Balkan route, all with the help of the Kurdish separatist militia known as the PKK.But he wasn't just your run of the mill drug lord: Baybasin claims he was a Turkish government sponsored heroin trafficker as part of an intricate conspiracy, involving state secrets, a militant guerrilla group waging a 40-year insurrection, massive conspiracies and international intrigue involving the Turkish deep state, spy agencies of multiple countries including Britain, informants, billions of dollars, one of the most powerful criminal families in Europe and Asia, and control of over 90 percent of the heroin flooding into the UK. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 29, 2024 • 57min
The Billion Dollar Scam Cult King who tried to Take Over an Island
When Bougainville fought an incredible civil war over a colossal mine, and won, its military leader emerged a hero. But he would soon fall under the spell of a conman and cult leader who wanted the Pacific island—and believed himself to be its king.The unlikely pair soon carved an empire out of a coconut palm jungle—and a wild, picaresque myth about Eden, ancient monarchs, and gold. The wildest thing was that almost everybody in the region believed it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 22, 2024 • 59min
North Korea's Meth Trafficking: The Hermit Narco-Kingdom
When a bizarre group of international gangsters shook on a massive meth deal with a DEA agent in Bangkok, Thailand eight years ago, it kicked off a manhunt ensnaring Hong Kong Triads, Outlaws bikers and an ex-US Army sniper’s band of contract killers. But the bust also shone a light on the shady drug network of North Korea, part of a crime machine fuelling the world’s maddest dictatorship. This is the story of how a war-torn Hermit Kingdom became a narco-trafficking, cash-counterfeiting, pimping Mafia state.An Underworld ClassicMerch: https://underworldpodcast.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 15, 2024 • 1h 5min
Indian Posse: The Native Teen Gang Ruling Canada's Prisons
Danny and Richard Wolfe were barely even teenagers when they formed the Indian Posse in their mother's basement with a handful of friends, but they had already been living the street life since they were in grade school, robbing, stealing and fighting. Never did they expect that within a few short years, the gang would balloon to hundreds and then thousands of members, taking shape in Winnipeg's poor and violent North End where there was no shortage of poor indigenous teens from broken families looking for brotherhood. Drug-dealing, pimping, armed robberies and murders went along with it.The Indian Posse exploded into Canada's western prairies in the 1990's and soon came to dominate the prisons, enforcing their reign with brutal violence. This the story of how the Wolfe brothers founded the gang, and then succumbed to its violent nature.MERCH: https://underworldpodcast.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Oct 8, 2024 • 1h 13min
The Warring Prison Cartels Carving up Ecuador
Jon Lee Anderson is an author and staff writer at The New Yorker. Anderson recently profiled Ecuador’s young president Daniel Noboa for a piece entitled “Ecuador’s Risky War on Narcos”.Jon Lee spoke about his weeks long visit to the embattled nation, its place in the wider drug world, and how political movements across Latin America have metastasized into the biggest and most violent underworld on the planet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices