Episodes

  • The Fugitive British Gangster Instagramming His Crimes in Africa: Sam Walker

    The Fugitive British Gangster Instagramming His Crimes in Africa: Sam Walker
    Jul 16 2024
    Sam Walker already had a huge rap sheet in his native Liverpool before 2018, when he took off across Europe and through the Sahara Desert into Sierra Leone - posting on social media the whole time. There he crafted a new life as a saviour of Freetown’s slums. But is there another, darker motive for Walker’s second act? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    47 mins
  • El Chapo's Sons Built a Fentanyl Empire: Los Chapitos

    El Chapo's Sons Built a Fentanyl Empire: Los Chapitos
    Jul 9 2024
    With El Chapo locked up in a supermax prison and never going home, there's been a battle to maintain the power of his feared Sinaloa cartel. Many thought his sons, groomed to take his place, would falter. Seen mostly as spoiled rich kid "narco juniors" who possessed neither the intelligence nor the strength to outmaneuver older, more experienced druglords, the men known as Los Chapitos have surprised many by turning their faction of the cartel into a ruthless powerhouse pumping out fentanyl into the US. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    50 mins
  • The Deadliest Biker War in History: Hells Angels vs Rock Machine

    The Deadliest Biker War in History: Hells Angels vs Rock Machine
    Jul 2 2024
    In the mid 90's, the Quebec Hells Angels made an offer to every drug trafficking organization in Montreal: buy from us or die. The Rock Machine motorcycle club refused to bend the knee, allying with a secretive group of business owner drug dealer money launderers known as the Dark Circle. What followed was 8 years of unparalleled violence, resulting in over 160 killed and turning the streets of Montreal into a war zone. Meanwhile, the Hells Angels and their leader Mom Boucher kept up their war on the authorities and sought to monopolize the entire drug market, raking in hundreds of millions in the process. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    52 mins
  • The Meth SuperCartels Destroying Tropical Paradise

    The Meth SuperCartels Destroying Tropical Paradise
    Jun 25 2024
    For years the Pacific region, and its tiny, tropical nations, steered clear of the global meth and cocaine trade. But politics, war and wild profit margins have pushed ships and planes out from Latin America to Australia across a new ‘drug highway.’ The phenomenon is prompting mass murder, crippling governments, and creating a wave of addiction where none existed. Locals are getting corrupted into becoming cartel ‘doors.’ And local gang underworlds have been upended, uprooted and hunted down like never before. Unless something changes, it'll be Paradise Lost. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    44 mins
  • How the Hells Angels Became Canada's Most Powerful Crime Family

    How the Hells Angels Became Canada's Most Powerful Crime Family
    Jun 18 2024
    The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club first chapter emerged in the US in the 1940's but didn't reach Canada until 1977. Less than 20 years later, they would be neck deep in the bloodiest motorcycle gang war ever fought as the Quebec chapter sought to monopolize the cocaine trade, utilizing car bombs and death squads to turn the city of Montreal into a war zone. Led by the psychotic and brilliant Maurice "Mom" Boucher, the Hells got so powerful they not only took on any and all rival biker gangs and criminal organizations, but the state itself. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    48 mins
  • El Salvador's War on MS-13: Nayib Bukele Goes Hard

    El Salvador's War on MS-13: Nayib Bukele Goes Hard
    Jun 11 2024
    Since 2019, Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele has smashed the country’s two main gangs, MS-13 and Barrio 18, throwing almost 80,000 people into megaprisons and implementing a harsh but effective “state of exception,” aka martial law. Murder rates have plummeted and, for the first time in years, Salvadorans can live without the fear of violence, extortion, or death. But the sneaker-wearing “world’s coolest dictator” has also gerrymandered El Salvador’s political map, silenced the press, and packed out the judiciary with sycophants and wallflowers. And as human rights NGOs cry foul, Bukele has gone full-tilt, telling citizens not to call him a dictator, but a “philosopher king.” Is his fragile peace about to come crashing down? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    56 mins
  • India's Gangster Assassins Are Running Wild

    India's Gangster Assassins Are Running Wild
    Jun 4 2024
    When hitmen shot dead Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar near Vancouver last June, Canadian cops blamed the government of India’s strongman leader Narendra Modi. Subsequent assassination plots in NYC, the UK and Germany have pointed at two men. One is India’s most notorious mobster. The other is its most decorated spy, a man whose undercover ops—and willingness to dip into the underworld—has earned him the nickname “India’s James Bond.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    41 mins
  • The Most Corrupt NYPD Detective & His Mafia Uncle w/Steve Fishman

    The Most Corrupt NYPD Detective & His Mafia Uncle w/Steve Fishman
    May 28 2024
    Louis Sarcella might be one of the most corrupt NYPD detectives ever, though he was once heralded as a master at getting confessions on homicides. A slick dressing, tough talking cigar smoker who could bench 400 pounds, he got such a good reputation that he was invited on the Dr. Phil show. But while he was waging a war on the streets, his uncle, Nicky Black Grancio, was waging a mafia war as the third Colombo family civil war heated up and bodies started to drop. Both Nicky and Louis's luck would soon run out. We're joined by the host of The Burden, journalist Steve Fishman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    46 mins