Buried on the border of Thailand and Myanmar, Shwe Kokko is a shimmering city of skyscrapers, casinos and fresh-laid highways. But peek a little closer and you’ll see why it has become one of the world’s criminal capitals — from razor-wire fences to keep in thousands of enslaved scammers, to armed rebel guards and a theme park where Chinese high-rollers can shoot military-grade weapons.Shwe Kokko is a gangster’s paradise. But not any gangster: the brainchild of a Burmese warlord and his Triad kinpin partner, it is an emblem of Golden Triangle lawlessness — where drugs, scams and slaves are bartered like chickens, and where billions of dollars disappear into a gigantic dark market. And this year, it has even helped start an international conflict.
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1:10:50
Europe's Deadliest Biker War: Hells Angels vs the Bandidos
In the 1980's and 1990's, America's biggest outlaw motorcycle gangs were looking to expand all over Europe. Unfortunately, they set their sites on the same countries, and they weren't keen on sharing territory.
The Great Nordic Biker War erupted in the 1990s as the Hells Angels and Bandidos clashed for control of drug routes and territory across Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland. What began as turf disputes escalated into bombings, shootings, and even attacks with anti-tank weapons o, shocking a population that never expected their streets to resemble war zones.
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America's Nightmare Mafia Boss: Gaspipe Casso
Anthony “Gaspipe” Casso was the Lucchese family’s brutal underboss, the brains behind boss Vic Amuso's reign, and architect of one of the Mafia’s bloodiest purges. Together they ruled the Luccheses with paranoia and brute force, wiping out rivals and even dozens of their own men if they sniffed disloyalty or simply didn't like them.
Casso personally ordered or committed dozens of murders, turning the family into a machine of fear. But when the law finally closed in, the man who scared even the most toughest enforcers and hitmen shocked the underworld by flipping, becoming one of the highest-ranking mobsters ever to turn informant.
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Fidel Castro: Cuba’s Cocaine Trafficker-in-Chief?
In 1959, when Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries toppled Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, they wasted no time booting out American business owners, casinos and drug kingpins — much to the delight of US law enforcers.
But as time passed, and Castro’s socialist regime sought ever-trickier income streams, the Caribbean island proved an irresistible stepping stone for cartels getting product from the Andes through Central America into Florida. Ambassadors, generals, and madcap American financiers: they were all on the take. But was El Jefe?
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The Dixie Mafia's Texas Millionaire Murders
When Bill Richardson, a troubled oilman and pro pigeon shooter, was gunned down on his Corpus Christi doorstep in 1971, everybody assumed it was an open-and-shut organized crime hit. But when Richardson’s supposed killers walked free from court, and another body showed up in the Gulf of Mexico, investigators stumbled on a conspiracy that pitted millionaire gamblers and sharpshooters against the narcos, conmen and killers of the Dixie Mafia.For decades the case fell cold. But has a reporter just busted it open again? Sean spoke to Bellingcat investigator Peter Barth to find out more.
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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.
Ireland