Ibrahim Akasha was the kingpin of East Africa’s heroin highway, setting up a massive tracking empire that stretched from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran to Kenya, South Africa and Europe.
When he was gunned down in 2000, his sons stepped into the void, hungrier and even more violent...but also, more sloppy. They struck deals with Pakistani mobsters and Colo ... Show More
Mar 17
The Iraqi-Aussie Gangster Lighting up Melbourne: Kaz Hamad
Melbourne has been gripped by a new wave of underworld gang wars, this time fueled by the booming billion dollar black-market tobacco trade. Firebombings, drive-by shootings, and extortion targeting shops across the city have roiled the city as middle eastern syndicates and biker ... Show More
1h 6m
Mar 10
The Narco Fugitive who Took Over an African Country
When a 2023 club brawl ended in a Freetown, Sierra Leone parking lot shooting, cops and reporters pointed the finger at “Omar Shariff,” a portly Turkish millionaire who’d spent much of the past six months throwing cash about at the city’s casinos and top-end restaurants. But Shar ... Show More
53m 22s
Mar 3
El Mencho Dead! And Mexico Explodes
We told you his life story in our 2022 episode, and now we're back with the sequel. El Mencho rose from poverty to build the CJNG into Mexico’s most violent and influential cartel, trafficking fent, meth and coke across the hemisphere. After years on the run with a huge U.S. boun ... Show More
1h 12m
Aug 2020
“The Cocky Watchman” Pt. 1: Curtis Warren
After a five-year stint in prison, Curtis Warren emerged stronger, sharper, and more connected. By 1989, he was selling cocaine and ecstasy in Liverpool, and building a network that included the biggest names in the Turkish mafia, Moroccan cartel, even the Triads… Learn more abou ... Show More
42m 48s
Aug 2020
“The Cocky Watchman” Pt. 2: Curtis Warren
In 1993, Warren handily beat a drug trafficking charge brought against him by British authorities. He spent the next three years rebuilding—and expanding—his empire, importing and exporting drugs all over the world, until Dutch authorities helped bring him down. Learn more about ... Show More
42m 55s
Aug 2025
77. The Hunt for Pablo Escobar: The Medellin Cartel vs Colombia (Ep 4)
By the autumn of 1989, the hunt for Pablo Escobar and the Medellín cartel was intensifying. With the US military and intelligence agencies now directly involved, a new, more aggressive phase of the War on Drugs had begun. Join Gordon and David as they explore how Escobar, facing ... Show More
50m 52s
Aug 2025
74. The Hunt for Pablo Escobar: Rise of a Drug Lord (Ep 1)
Colombia in the mid-20th century was a place of beauty and bloodshed - where jungle mountains sheltered rebels, the cities were ruled by oligarchs, and outlaw legends became folk heroes. Into this world stepped Pablo Escobar. Charming, calm, and calculating, he would become one o ... Show More
58m 56s
Feb 2025
Samar Al-Bulushi, "War-Making as Worldmaking: Kenya, the United States, and the War on Terror" (Stanford UP, 2024)
Since Kenya's invasion of Somalia in 2011, the Kenyan state has been engaged in direct combat with the Somali militant group Al-Shabaab, conducting airstrikes in southern Somalia and deploying heavy-handed police tactics at home. As the hunt for suspects has expanded within Kenya ... Show More
1h 5m
Nov 2019
BILLY THE KID Ep. 2 | "Crooks, Killers and Thieves"
Lincoln County in southeastern New Mexico Territory grows into a hotbed of corruption and murder. Men named Murphy, Dolan and Brady align themselves against others called Tunstall, McSween and Chisum. An outlaw gang kills and steals at will, and it’s about to add a new man to its ... Show More
34m 21s