The Narco Lord of the Skies: Amado Carrillo Fuentes
Amado Carrillo Fuentes was one of the most powerful drug traffickers of the 1990s, moving hundreds of tons of cocaine and amassing billions while forging deep ties with Colombian cartels and corrupt Mexican officials. At the height of his power, he controlled the Juárez Cartel and operated a fleet of private jets, outpacing rivals and law enforcement alike.
His influence stretched from Mexico to South America and the U.S., making him a near-mythic figure in the drug world—until his sudden death during a secret plastic surgery left more questions than answers.
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51:27
Cocaine, Camorra, Call Girls: Maradona's Downfall
In 1987, Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona was on top of the world. He’d just handed his nation a World Cup, and his club side Napoli its first league title in over 60 years.
But Maradona’s hard-partying lifestyle and underworld friends would soon take their toll - and before long, the world’s greatest sportsman was in a tangled web of vice, drugs and match-fixing that would haunt him until his dying days.
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1:09:08
Russian Mafia Superhitman: Alexander Solonik
The 1990's in Moscow were the glory days of Russian organized crime. Emerging out of the downfall of communism, wannabe oligarchs and gangsters turned the country into a free-for-all as they fought for control. And no where, is more deadly than Moscow. In 1992, there was 2,500 murders in Moscow alone.
There’s a lot of action, and everyone wants a piece of that action. Problem is, sometimes two people wanted a piece of that same action. In Moscow, in 1993, they didn't go to the courts. They went to the hired killers. And the most infamous of those hitman was Alexander Solonik.
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55:50
Scotland's Narco Blood Feud Explodes!
When cops on the English coast busted a bid to bring in a huge shipment of cocaine in 2020, it sent shockwaves through the underworld hundreds of miles north in Scotland, where the drugs were destined for, and reignited a bitter feud between the Lyons and Daniel crime families that had simmered for almost two decades.
Today, with a third, international gang entering the fray, the feud has spilled into all-out war, with residents of Glasgow and Edinburgh watching in horror as homes burn and bodies drop. But how did it all begin — and where will the violence end?
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The Wild, Murderous Rampage of the Zizians
When cops arrested a group of masked, black-robed protesters at a California campsite in 2019, most folks thoughts they’d caught some eccentric but harmless members of the Bay Area’s niche rationalist movement. But over the next few years the group would rally around its charismatic leader, Ziz LaSota, tearing across North America on a rampage of robbery and murder.
But even today, with LaSota in prison and several members dead, nobody’s quite sure what the Zizians are: a cult? A gang? Or just the most extreme Silicon Valley shitposters in history? We speak to journalist and author Evan Ratliff, who reported the Zizians for WIRED Magazine, to find out more — plus some bonus chat on Evan’s AI scam-led podcast “Shell Game”.
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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.
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