Episodes

  • Peru's Shining Path Narco Terrorists: From Commie Civil War to Cartel Muscle

    Peru's Shining Path Narco Terrorists: From Commie Civil War to Cartel Muscle
    Nov 19 2024
    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
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    58 mins
  • The Bloody Turkish Mafia War Raging Across the World

    The Bloody Turkish Mafia War Raging Across the World
    Nov 12 2024
    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
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    54 mins
  • Europe's Pablo Escobar: The Heroin Emperor Huseyin Baybashin

    Europe's Pablo Escobar: The Heroin Emperor Huseyin Baybashin
    Nov 5 2024
    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
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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • The Billion Dollar Scam Cult King who tried to Take Over an Island

    The Billion Dollar Scam Cult King who tried to Take Over an Island
    Oct 29 2024
    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
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    57 mins
  • North Korea's Meth Trafficking: The Hermit Narco-Kingdom

    North Korea's Meth Trafficking: The Hermit Narco-Kingdom
    Oct 22 2024
    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 Classic Merch: https://underworldpodcast.myshopify.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    59 mins
  • Indian Posse: The Native Teen Gang Ruling Canada's Prisons

    Indian Posse: The Native Teen Gang Ruling Canada's Prisons
    Oct 15 2024
    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
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    1 hr and 5 mins
  • The Warring Prison Cartels Carving up Ecuador

    The Warring Prison Cartels Carving up Ecuador
    Oct 8 2024
    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
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    1 hr and 13 mins
  • The Cartel That Went to War w/Pablo Escobar: The Gentlemen of Cali

    The Cartel That Went to War w/Pablo Escobar: The Gentlemen of Cali
    Oct 1 2024
    As Colombia's cocaine industry exploded in the 1980's, Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel became the dominant player, capturing headlines across the world. But there was a second cartel rising up, one that operated more in the shadows and would soon grow more powerful - and more profitable - than even Medellin. The Gentlemen of Cali were slick, sophisticated and always looking for a solution that wouldn't attract headlines. They fancied themselves businessmen and aristocrats, and as Pablo went to war on the state, they invested hundreds of millions into businesses and politicians all over Colombia. Though originally good-natured rivals, the Cali and Medellin cartels maintained decent relations...only they didn't. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 hr and 3 mins