South Africa's secretive Numbers Gangs almost defy description; they're one part cult, one part religion, and all parts violent psychopaths. Emerging originally as bandits preying on gold miners and policemen in colonial South Africa, they took shape in the brutal prison system of apartheid, where sometimes the only way to communicate was through stabbing wh ... Show More
Oct 13
Cuba’s New Synthetic Drug Wave
How Cuba is Slipping into Drug Chaos Since the beginning of the year, the US has placed Cuba under an oil embargo, crippling its public services and throwing a society that was already on its knees into chaos. Blackouts roll for days, trash piles high and locals are getting sick ... Show More
59m 52s
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
Nov 2022
The Monster of Malherbe Street
Every country has their infamous criminals, and Gert van Rooyen and Joey Haarhoff was South Africa's first serial killer couple. Active in both Pretoria and Johannesburg during the late 1980’s, their crimes shocked the nation, leaving deep scars on the collective psyche of an ent ... Show More
46m 50s
Aug 2022
MS-13 Pt. 1: Transnational Street Gang
By cult standards, they aren’t one. But MS-13 does share a common language with even the most insidious fringe groups. Bound by loyalty, ideology, and power, the members of MS-13 make up one of the most dangerous gangs to ever exist. And it all started on the streets of Los Angel ... Show More
40m 9s
Dec 2020
LA County Sheriff’s Gangs Pt. 4: The Compton Executioners
The Compton Executioners allegedly control every aspect of life at the LASD Compton substation. Gang members have been accused of assaulting fellow deputies and even killing civilians, claiming, often without evidence, that they were acting in self-defense. And although they’ve f ... Show More
43m 48s
