In the 1990's, a new group of criminals started making their presence known on the streets of New York City: the Albanian mafia. Soon, they earned a reputation that even scared the Italian mafias that had dominated the city for decades. Muscling in on Gambino and Lucchese rackets, they pulled guns on made men and people began referring to the Rudaj Organizat ... Show More
Oct 6
Cuba: From Lansky’s Casinos to Castro’s Guns
Sean got beaten up in Cuba! To celebrate this, we’ve thrown together a biopoly of crime in the tropics, beginning with the story of how American organized crime flocked to Havana in the 1920s as a Prohibition rum-runner’s paradise. After World War II, mobsters then executed a tak ... Show More
59m 13s
Sep 29
Stash House: Cartel Wars, Coke Boats, and Gangs Gone Global
Danny and Sean take another lap around the criminal world, where somehow everything is getting bigger, stranger, and more international. Sinaloa’s cartel war grinds on, Romanian crews allegedly drain millions from American food-benefit accounts, and South Africa confronts organiz ... Show More
1h 3m
Sep 22
Assassination Nation: The Balkan Clan War that Took Over Europe
In the picturesque Montenegrin port of Kotor, a cocaine trafficking partnership fractured into one of Europe’s bloodiest gang wars. A dispute over a drug shipment in Spain in 2014 split the organization into two rival clans, the Kavač and Škaljari, turning former allies into swor ... Show More
1h 15m
Jul 2023
The Italian Squad: A Group of 1920s NYPD Immigrant Detectives Who Fought the Rise of the Mafia
The story begins in Sicily, on Friday, March 12th, 1909. Three gunshots thundered in the night, and then a fourth. Two men fled, and investigators soon discovered who they had killed: Giuseppe Petrosino, the legendary American detective whose exploits in New York were celebrated ... Show More
28m 5s
May 2022
Mafia Pt. 1: The Rise of La Cosa Nostra
When mafiosos rose to power in 20th century America, they were untouchable criminals with an unbreakable code. Their origins in Sicily left them with a taste for extreme loyalty, secrecy, and violence. And even before notorious gangster “Lucky” Luciano remade them into an organiz ... Show More
47m 57s
Jan 2022
521: La Cosa Nostra: The Five Crime Families of New York
La Cosa Nostra, the oath of omerta, and the five crime families of New York, AKA, The Mafia. In this documentary, Swamp Dweller takes a dive into the organized crime syndicate that ran New York City and even the country as a whole. Our Dark History is a brand new series from the ... Show More
17m 21s
Jun 2021
A Mob Boss Starts a Movement
June 28, 1971. It’s the second annual “Unity Day” rally at Columbus Circle in New York City, organized by the Italian American Civil Rights League. Joe Colombo is the very public face of the League, a group that actively fights discrimination and ugly stereotypes against the Ital ... Show More
29m 44s
<p><strong> </strong></p><br><p>In the early 20th century, a disorganised bunch of criminals transformed into a criminal empire and made billions in the process. </p><p>In this episode, we'll learn how it all got started and why you didn't want to get on the wrong side of Charles ... Show More
