Over the last three years there's been an explosion of fentanyl on the streets of America and it's led to over 100,000 Americans dying from drug overdoses, the overwhelming majority because of fent. In this episode, Sean lays out the way producers in China have connected with Mexican drug cartels from shipping precursors to laundering money, where Danny spea ... Show More
Today
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 ... Show More
48m 25s
Aug 19
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-tric ... Show More
1h 4m
Aug 12
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 ... Show More
1h 5m
Feb 2024
Bonus: Killer drug: Fentanyl in Mexico and the US
Fentanyl is deadly. Thousands of Americans die every year from a drug overdose – the majority of them after using a synthetic opioid like fentanyl. It was developed as a legal, and effective, pain killer. Now, fuelled by insatiable US demand, it is illicitly produced in makeshift ... Show More
53m 39s
Mar 2023
Killer drug: Fentanyl in the US
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is destroying lives all over the United States. Manufactured illegally and at a huge profit by drug cartels in Mexico, it’s smuggled across the border into southern California and Arizona. The director at one entry point on the border acknowledges th ... Show More
28m 8s
Nov 2020
America's Other Epidemic: The Opioid Crisis Is Worse Than 4 Years Ago
During President Trump's first year in office, 42,000 Americans died of drug overdoses linked to heroin, fentanyl and prescription opioids. After a minor decrease in 2018, deaths rose to a record 50,042 in 2019. That number will likely be even worse for 2020. NPR's Brian Mann rep ... Show More
13m 54s
Mar 2023
Killer drug: The Mexico connection
Fentanyl is deadly. Thousands of Americans die every year from a drug overdose – the majority of them after using a synthetic opioid like fentanyl. Fentanyl was developed as a legal, and effective, pain killer. Now, fuelled by insatiable US demand, it’s illicitly produced in make ... Show More
27m 20s
Aug 2021
Benjamin T. Smith, "The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade" (W. W. Norton, 2021)
For over a century Mexico has been embroiled in a drug war dictated by the demands of their neighbor to the north. In The Dope: The Real History of the Mexican Drug Trade (W. W. Norton, 2021), Benjamin T. Smith offers a history of the trade and its effects upon the people of Mexi ... Show More
46m 39s