The Rise and Fall of Golden Triangle Dope: From a Jailed Kingpin to a Casino Shootout
Lo Hsing Han was a Burmese narco so powerful that Richard Nixon called him a Godfather. But the Kokang king tried one too many shady deals, sending the Golden Triangle’s heroin industry on a helter-sk...
16 Apr 202443min
Skinny Joey Merlino and The Philly Mob Wars:
Well, they blew up the Chicken Man in Philly last night. And they blew up his house too. And the racket boys, they really did have a fight...a brutal one that lasted decades and saw Skinny Joey Merlin...
9 Apr 202446min
The Zombie Drug Robbery Gangs of Medellin Preying on Dating Apps w/ Toby Muse
Medellin was once the world's most violent city, torn about by Pablo Escobar's murderous cartel warfare and later, Don Berna's meteoric rise to control the city's drug trade. Over the last decade, tho...
2 Apr 202458min
Kokang Cowboys: Burma’s Transgender Narco Royalty, a Secret Army, and a “Special Belt”
Olive Yang—or Miss Hairy Legs, or Two-Gun Mulan, or any number of nicknames folks gave her—was the gunslinging princess of Kokang who bucked the royal yolk to become one of the Golden Triangle’s bigge...
27 Mar 202443min
Digital Hucksters, Crypto Scams and the Internet’s “Enshittification” with Cory Doctorow
From Ponzi schemes to shitcoins, phishing scams and Nigerian princes, we’re living in a golden age of online crime. But hasn’t it always been this way? Cory Doctorow’s latest novel “The Bezzle” dives ...
19 Mar 202457min
The Most Successful American Mobster EVER: Tony Accardo
Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo aka the Big Tuna (!) was one of the most powerful Mob Bosses that the American Mafia has ever seen, sitting atop the brutal Chicago Outfit for 40 years. From being an errand...
12 Mar 202454min
Listen Now: Varnamtown Episode 1
Two years ago, Kyle MacLachlan, the star of Twin Peaks, called investigative journalist Joshua Davis with a strange story. Kyle had heard a rumor that Pablo Escobar did a deal in the early 1980s with ...
8 Mar 20244min
The Bamboo Union Triads, Taiwan's White Wolf Godfather, and a Murdered Reporter in SF
When Chinese-American reporter Henry Liu was gunned down in his Daly City garage in 1984, it brought the Bamboo Union, Taiwan’s most powerful Triad, to global attention. But while the killing frayed t...
5 Mar 202440min
