The Underworld Podcast - Chechen Mobsters, Bombs, Bumps and Special Ops: The Criminal Tale of Caviar

Episode Date: July 5, 2022

Caviar has been considered a delicacy since ancient times. But when the Soviet Union collapsed, a black market flourished—and kicked off gang wars along the coasts of the Caspian Sea. Then, years later, the caviar mafia came to a tiny Missouri town. But its maritime mobsters hadn't reckoned with an experienced undercover cop and an ingenious plan that would snag them hook, line and sinker. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. It's 2011, and Caviar Chaos has hit the tiny town of Warsaw, Missouri. Warsaw, which sits on a long, lazy bend of the Assange River, right in the heart of the Ozarks, has long been a favored spot for fishermen hunting the American paddlefish, a long-billed, distant relative of the sturgeon. Thanks to the nearby Truman Dam, egg-lane females can't go any further upstream, and they're trapped right down the street from a dive bar and a sonic driving.

It's kind of like shooting fish in a barrel, with plenty of fatty food and cold beers to go around. Only the guys floating Warsaw aren't much into beer. They prefer vodka, lots of it, and they roll in white Mercedes SUVs, and other cars that aren't six-wheeled dodge trucks with Confederate flags flying out the back. Shifty as hell. The Warsawites, but they've seen this all before,

back in the 1980s, in the dying days of the Soviet Empire, Russian gangsters arrived in town to scoop up paddlefish eggs or row. They might have been poor quality compared to the stuff you might eat in a Michelin-starred Moscow restaurant, but stick a label on those eggs, call them caviar, and smuggled them to the east coast, well, you've got yourself a six-figure catch. Back then, it took an enterprising Department of Conservation Agent to break up the paddlefish poachers.

But then the Berlin Wall fell, and an underworld race for caviar heated up so bad in the former USSR that entire sturgeon populations died out, corrupt officials were assassinated, and at one point, in a remote war-torn Russian region, an entire apartment block was blown up, killing dozens. Caviar wars had become a fixture of modern Russia's dark economy. Warsaw's cops don't want one of those on their doorstep.

Thankfully, one of the guys from those bleak days in the 80s is still around and he's got a plan. Before long, Warsaw is welcoming tons of guys with East European accents, and they're all buying permits from an over-friendly assistant with a bump on his shoulder. A few yards away, sleeping in a caravan is a friendly old sea dog called Gary Hamilton. He's always interested in the day's paddlefish hall and who's catching what and how. He asks a lot of questions in fact and he barely ever gets hammered on vodka like everybody else. Before too long, everybody in Warsaw will find out why. Welcome to the Underworld podcast.

Hi guys and welcome to another episode of the show where we take you on Nutton, graphs that go all the way back to the Jurassic period. There ain't no editor letting that slip through the draft. I am Sean Williams. I don't even know what that means. A journalist in Berlin. And I'm joined by fellow poor life decision maker, Danny Gold in New York City. We love you guys.

We want to make this our full-time job so we can talk to each other instead of getting 1am calls from editors. Yeah. How's your week been? I mean, I don't even know what that opening sentence means, but I'm very excited about this episode. That was a great intro, man. And you're right, though.

We got to get those Patreon numbers up. Otherwise, I swear to God, I'm just going to go back to stealing catalytic converters. You could do that anyway. That's true. I mean, as always, we've got stuff going out on the Patreon. We've got mini episodes, interviews. Speaking to Evan Ratliff about his new podcast on an Israeli scammer next week, so that'll be fun. I also just published a big story for the Atavist last Thursday about gangston, neo-Nazi,

in Cold War Germany and Vladimir. Putin, give it a reader or listen. I think we'll do a show about it soon as well. Yeah, there's a parrot smuggler in Berlin. I keep talking about this parrot smuggler in Berlin. Am I missing anything? No, I mean, we just have a lot of interesting stuff going up there for a bonus episode. It's Patreon.com slash the underworld podcast. But I have a bunch of people, too. I keep meaning to talk to, but I'm just very lazy and unmotivated because we have to deal with contracts and lawyers and nonsense. We should be millionaires already off this stuff. But, you know, eventually. eventually I'll get around to it because what else, like what else is there, you know?

Yeah. Nothing. Nothing. So. Nothing. Yeah. So, yeah, caviar. I actually heard about this whole thing ages ago when I was living in Oklahoma.

And yeah, some pals are telling me. Yeah, living in Oklahoma. Jesus. I know, right. I've got, I've got stories, man. And some pals, they were telling me about a bunch of Russian guys coming down to the lakes there to still paddlefish eggs, which is obviously a great story. I never did a single.

story from Oklahoma, actually it's pretty pathetic. But they must have got their facts mixed up because the problem's actually in neighboring Missouri, where apparently the fishing laws are way more liberal than Oklahoma. So imagine that a state with more liberal laws than Oklahoma, nuts. Yeah, you know, every now and then, I love to just buy into like fully some YouTube podcast, Reddit, Bro Science. That's where the money is. I definitely did a version of, yeah, of the carnivore diet for a few weeks when I got back from Ukraine just because I wanted to lose some weight, you know, just grass-fed beef and tallow. But there's a really big thing with that about, and I guess it is really healthy for you, like, with Roe, with like fish eggs, you know?

So I actually have been looking at, before this episode, I've been, like, looking into, like, where can I get this online or where can you do it? And the only affordable ones are paddle fish eggs. Do we need to send a message to your super just alert in him that there's a guy in the, in the apartment complex only eating fish eggs? Because I feel like that's going to, that's going to cause some problems. I think I was maybe an underworld feeling. trip to rural Missouri to go, I don't know, fucking smuggling and stealing paddlefish eggs. We'll see how you do that. Yeah, I'm fully down.

Before we carry on, there's this like crazy episode of Law and Order that roped in a plot about caviar gangsters. I think we should have a quick list, and I wonder where you can tell where this story is heading in any way. Russell's last meal was a pricey one. Emmy said his stomach was full of caviar and some kind of dump one. We just need to find who he ate it with. Vladimir Rezanov.

That was Russell's dinner date? That was Russell, his real name. He immigrated from Russia 15 years ago. OCID's had him on their radar for a while. Russian mob. I thought they were way past trucking into counterfeiting, identity theft. Well, this recession is tough on everyone. Anyway, you enjoy that?

That's pretty funny, isn't it? I mean, yeah, but don't disrespect law and order. You know, we are big supporters. Rest and peace. Rest and peace, Jerry Orbach, you're a legend. Yeah, by the pod. By the pod. Anyway, what the hell is caviar?

So let's take it back now, guys, all the way back to the Mesozoic era, which I know you're all big fans of. Where am I underworld Mesozoic gang at? To kick us off, here is Nicola Fletcher, the author of 2010's Caviar, a Global History, quote, Sturgeon are placid creatures. Pick them up, and they don't struggle. Relics are the most ancient creatures on earth. Fossils exist from the lower Jurassic period some 200 million years ago,

showing that they remain virtually unchanged. They survived heat and ice that wiped out countless other species and coexisted with humans when they emerged 2 million years ago. But they seem to have no instinct to escape the clumsiest of fishing systems, and within the last 150 years, human activities have practically wiped them out. So caviar is the row or eggs of the female sturgeon, which is this massive fish, like most of whose 27 species live in fresh water,

with the rest by coastlines. And whoever first had the right idea of eating those so-called berries, as some people called them, well, that was in China. But it took off in ancient Persia, modern Iran. The word itself comes from the Persian Caviar, which means, quote, cake of strength, because ancient Persians believe it had a bunch of medicinal properties. Look, guys, you came here for the crime, you left with a bunch of pub quiz knowledge about ancient Persian diets, all right?

Just take it. this stuff, this row, it comes from the Kura River, which drains into the Caspian Sea from modern-day Azerbaijan and Georgia. Honestly, it's fascinating. Like, I'm learning so much, and I love it. I can't tell whether that was Ernest. No, it's Ernest. Maybe we should just do a whole, like, pub quiz knowledge opening every single episode. I'm kind of done with it. I wouldn't go that far. Anyway, moving on. As far back as the fourth century BC, the Greek philosopher Aristotle was tucking into caviar, and he described it even then as a delicacy,

and even by the second century BC, one jar of caviar could fetch a hundred sheep. That's a lot of fucking sheep. Yeah, that is way more sheep than I spend on a Friday night. Many years later, Russians ate caviar on days when Orthodox Christians weren't allowed to eat meat, and Russian Tsars levied attacks on fishing for caviar sturgeon, which is what some people think caused it to be considered

such an exclusive thing today. And actually, America, this stuff was really big in your wild west back in the saloons, and it was made into a business by Germans who came over in the big wave of European immigration in the 19th century. Sturgeon were swimming around in the Delaware River in their millions, and companies popped up across the eastern seaboard, especially in Jersey. By the end of that century, the US imports 90% of the world's caviar, most of which it re-importes to itself as quote

Russian caviar. Wait, what does that mean? Like it imports or exports 90% of the world's caviar? Because how do you re-import something that you're already import? Like, how does that work? So from what I was reading, it basically sends it out to Europe and then labels it and then sends it back to the US as Russian caviar. So it gets around some kind of like a, I don't know, like

guidelines or rules or whatever. So was it exporting, like 90% of the world's caviar? Is that what that means too? It was, yeah. Oh, most of what you're re-impro? Okay. So we're exporting a lot and then re- Okay, whatever, man. Yeah, yeah.

The global economy makes a lot of sense to me all the time. But to get this stuff, this caviar, right? You've got to cut open the sturgeon and you've got to get the eggs, right? It's not the most sustainable business. Unsurprisingly, that poor sturgeon is going to die. And throughout the 20th century, sturgeon numbers thin out in the Caspian and in the States. So up to this point, you've got this ultra-desirable luxury good and a bottleneck of supply, pretty much like cocaine or Bugatti's or crime podcasts.

Nice. Yeah, thank you. During the first half of the 20th century, the Soviet Union and Iran are in the top spots for caviar exports, with 2,500 tonnes and 250 tons, respectively. Every man and every woman writes French author, God, that is a hideous name. Magelon, Toussaint-Somat. Reverently eating modern ambrosia in the form of caviar can identify it as they indulge in the mad extravagance of swallowing it,

even if they do not happen to like it with what they see as the last incarnation of the immortals. I mean, that's the most European thing you could ever say about food. Like, you really don't have to like food to think it's like upmarket. In Soviet times, right, caviar, it becomes a favorite way to curry favor with corrupt officials, says one historian, quote, caviar became an underground currency, a luxurious way of greasing palms and extracting favors.

And actually, it's the same today. So dirty is the caviar industry that the corrupt former Soviet state of Azerbaijan's method of bribing European officials to avoid investigation into its kleptocracy is known as, quote, caviar diplomacy. According to a senior Azari lawmaker, quote, there are a lot of deputies in the Council of Europe whose first greeting after hello is, quote, where is the caviar?

Just want to say that the Underworld podcast has no issues with Azerbaijan and all the millions of dollars they're pumping into lobbying efforts right now. Both of us enjoy caviar, but also enjoy suitcases full of cash. Wait, are they paying for podcasts? I mean, we could be the first, I don't know. Okay, all right, fingers crossed. According to the European Stability Initiative, quote,

Caviar has always been a symbol of luxury, prolific caviar eaters themselves, Russian Tsars and Iranian shahs, treated visiting royalty to the row of the beluga sturgeon. That's a really nice sentence, isn't it? With 90% of the world's caviar source from the Caspian Sea, Azerbaijan is rich in caviar and generous with its wealth. Okay, it kind of went downhill there.

Even in Soviet times, Azari officials bought tins of caviates. are with them when they conducted businesses in other parts of the empire. And briefly, and I'm really sorry about this, before we kick into the crimey meat of this episode, I'm going to make you all really, really angry. Here is a New York Times piece from early June that just makes me want to go on a Ted Kaczynski's style rampage. Quote, Jimmy Hahn, 41, a bar owner in Los Angeles, was in Coachella in April when he and four friends decided to do a bump in a bump in the a pop-up seafood restaurant, though not the kind you might be picturing.

After ordering a seafood platter, he opened a gold tin of Regis over caviar, poured a spoonful on his fist between his thumb and index finger, and then proceeded to lick it off with his tongue, like salt after a tequila shot. People used to get high off drugs, Mr. Hahn said, laughing as he crushed the fish eggs against the top of his mouth. Now we're getting high off the food. I mean, I hate Jimmy Han. You have to hate Jimmy Han. I also hate this.

Quote, caviar bumps in which a dollop of the fish row is eaten, brackets, not snorted, off the back of one's hand, have become a decadent and naughty way to consume the pricey delicacy at certain restaurants. Nauty. It's just disgusting. At certain restaurants, fashionable bars, art festivals, and other showy gatherings. You know, I saw this going around social media a few weeks ago, but it was just such. obviously perfectly tailored rage bait that I had to ignore it. And I also, like, is this a real thing?

Is this like a thing that like two people did it? And the New York Times is like, this is a thing that's happening. You know? It cannot be. I mean, there's like war and climate change and all kinds of things going on. But this is worse. It's a stylical. You know, that's what happens.

But it's also like, it was reading to get this reaction. You're just giving them what they want, dude. Yeah. Well, good job. I'm making tons of money off the back of this as well. And in case you think Jimmy Hahn is the worst person on Earth, here, like, enter stage left is 37-year-old Christian Shirley, who owns a luxury lifestyle website. Of course she does.

Quote, a watch collector came up to me yesterday at Freeze and said she saw a video of me doing one on Instagram, and she wanted a try. Then the article goes on. When Miss Shirley entertains friends at her apartment in Soho, they drink champagne and do caviarine, caviar bumps around the kitchen island. I think that's one of the worst sentences

I've read in my life. I love caviar bumps because you don't need to put together a huge cheese board and get all the crudette, she said. You just need a tin and a spoon. And that's inspired a t-shirt idea, by the way. Can we do a caviar bumps for Changuito? I just want to let Kristen Shirley know,

Kirsten Shirley, whatever her name is that, you know, we're not anti-her at the Underworld podcast, and if her great luxury website wants to advertise, or give us suitcases full of caviar or cash like we're open to that too. Are you seeing where we're at guys with this, with this project? So according to one of the... That's just seeping out.

Oh my God. According to one of the assholes in the story, you can do bumps of caviar to bond with your powers instead of shots when you're working. But as we're going to find out in this episode, you cannot bump caviar guys without contributing to the misery of people across the world. It's way, way worse than cocaine, heroin, even fentanyl. All right. Yeah, I mean, you can't.

Is this serious? I still don't know whether this is serious. Anyway, if you... Okay, right. Let's take it down a notch. If you've heard of caviar, you've heard of beluga caviar. This is the fanciest, the most expensive, rarest type of caviar. The Bugatti or Versace of caviar.

Like, you get it, right? You ever had it, Danny? I mean, I went on this trip to St. Petersburg. No, I went on this trip to St. Petersburg a few years ago and bagged an insane hotel for a travel mag. Genuinely, I just gave you a top journalist tip there, guys. And they plied me with loads of this stuff. And I've got to say, it's just kind of goopy, sordy blobs.

I'm not a big fan. Anyway, who gives a toss what I think? Because gluga caviar is one of the most expensive products on earth, with prices ranging from 7 grand to 10 grand per kilo, or up to four and a half grand per pound, which is similar to saffron. I mean, it's no gold, which is about 22K,

but unless you're two chains, you are not eating your gold. That caviar is gone in 60 seconds. This reference doesn't even make sense. Two chains wasn't in that movie? No, but he did do that video series, right, where he eats the most expensive.

Wasn't it called like the most expensive is shit? Have you not seen this? He's like gold leaf ice cream and stuff like that. Friend of the pod, Mitch Pover, wrote a vice piece last year about saffron mafias, which is super interesting including this quote. Saffron is total bullshit.

It's like buying drugs. You must have a spice dealer you trust. So yeah, I think we should get him on here to talk about that. Yeah. Yeah, it's cool, huh? Anyway, the largest sturgeon is the female beluga, which, and this is pretty nuts,

can reach a length of 23 feet or around 7.2 meters. That's higher than a double deck of bus. So fishermen use these medieval-looking hooks to dig into them and catch them. It's all pretty grim. According to a recent report by the charity traffic, 16 of the 27 species of sturgeon are endangered, with six key markets identified, China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and the US.

And there are loads of ways to smuggle illegal caviar. You could mix it in with legal shipments or just mislabel a crate. You can forge fishing permits with the help of a few dirty officials, of course. Or you could do something called blackwashing, which is selling aquaculture sturgeon. In other words, fish that have been farmed, often in terrible conditions, a so-called wild caviar, and that is the gold standard. In the 1990s, newly formed Russia is beset by criminal gangs, as we've gone into a bunch of episodes, Brighton Beach, the Tollieti gang wars.

That is no secret that Russia is a gang paradise in the 90s. And loads of these groups are contraband smugglers, stuff out of the country across the Caspian Sea. How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to see here. Multi-vehicle discount. Safe driver discount. New vehicle discount. Storage discount. How many discounts will you stack up?

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Working it. Zootopia 2. Now available on Disney Plus rated PG. And now Russia is not short on corrupt officials for help either. In the 90s, Renato Salikoff, who is the head of the Department of Combating Organized Crime, is himself sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in a massive caviar fraud that brings in two of the region's biggest mafias, the Russian club and the Tatar Trade Union.

I like that latter name. It's pretty cool. The Caspian Sea just happens to be the eastern border of Dagestan, which is a breakaway Muslim region fighting for independence, and it sits right next to Chechnya at war at the time and exporting gangsters and terrorists all over the world. For the record, I just want to make sure everyone knows. is Sean who's saying bad stuff about Chechnya and Dagestan. So, you know, just want to put that out there.

I'm in Berlin as well. Plus, Georgia is just to the south. And the crime situation isn't much better there. At attempts to stop these guys are often met with grizzly force. Again, I'm really sorry. Actually, Baghistan is getting so rich at this point that folks are building whole towns of luxury mansions just outside this capital city, Makakshala. And they're calling it Santa Barbara.

famously later on, Macachala pumps hundreds of millions of dodgy euros into its football team and buys a ton of stars before going bust. But corrupt Caucasian football teams, I mean, that could be a whole other episode altogether. In the mid-90s, Russia, under Boris Yoltsin, who's constantly hammered and has a heart like a stamp prune, says it's going to ban the fishing of sturgeon in the Caspian Sea to stop crime and prevent the fish's extinction. and that unsurprisingly does not go down well with the local crooks. Two dozen members of a Russian anti-poaching gang are murdered, murdered. And in 1996, all hell breaks loose in the war-torn Caucasian Republic of Dagestan,

which becomes ground zero for a crazy Kariar gang war. I mean, I guess these guys must all be Scottish nationalists because they're trying to nickel to sturgeon. Do you get it? I actually really do not get it. Oh man. I'm not even going to explain it. I was so happy when I did that one.

I'm sure someone out there, I'm sure someone out there will get it. Yeah, just keep it. We'll keep it going. Please, please email. Here's an LA Times report in 1997, quote, Dagestan is now in the grip of a crime wave. Drive-by shootings, explosions,

and unexplained assassinations are rife. Fish police. I love the phrase fish police. are kidnapped and killed regularly. Finance Minister Garned Gammadov was killed by a car bomb in 1996, and his rival, Deputy Prime Minister Saeed Amarov, has survived four attempts on his life. Fish Police is a pretty funny job title,

but I guess, like, it's not that funny when Russian mobsters are just murking all of your co-workers. Yeah, I guess 25 years later, still funny, though? I don't know. This reaches a deadly low point in November 1996. Hold on. We'll have to like change the tone because this is definitely not funny. When a bomb goes off at an apartment block in the city of Kasbisk near the Dagestani capital, like I said, I keep making myself say this name, Makachkala.

And it kills 56 people, 18 of them children. Most of them are border patrol officials and their families who've been sent to Dagestan to stop the illegal caviar trade. Boris Yeltsin, by then recovering from a quintuple heart bypass, like, I didn't even know you could do a quintuple. Wow. He issues a day of morning. Weirdly, Russia's FSB says it's detained, quote, a foreign intelligence operative from a country outside the former Soviet Union. But it's the FSB and Russia, so you can make up your own mind. The main suspect, though, is Dagestan's fisheries miniskar Magamad Kachileev, who it's very

to say doesn't really try too hard to disguise his wealth. He rolls around in poor Macachala, in an armoured Humvee with bodyguards. He gives a batshit interview to the LA Times writer who asks if he's the leader of a so-called caviar war. Quote, The Russian newspaper Top Secret Wrote an utterly absurd and brazen article

about me in connection with that. They almost came out and called me the head mafioso, the king of fish. So they didn't actually call him that, but he's running with it. And so he goes on, they're trying to label me as a criminal. They want all the mud they're slinging to stick to me.

But no one human could possibly blow up a house full of people for caviar or money. I mean, yeah, plenty of people have definitely blown up buildings for money, mate. But he goes on, he's enjoying the attention now, quote, There is no official economy, just chaos. People are swept along by the tide of life and stay alive the best they can. smugglers clearly work for people in power, and a lot is lost, but I can't say how much. Yeah, I kind of love how he's like, you know, the newspapers calling me the fish mafia kingpin are making people ask a lot of questions about whether or not I'm the fish mafia kingpin. When it's kind of like, they actually didn't say that.

You're just bringing it up out of nowhere, so, you know. Yeah, it's very OJ. Yeah. But anyway, funny story in 1998, the same guy at Kachalaya, and his brother are convicted for weapon smuggling and seizing the local government building. His brother is this super controversial Islamist leader who gets in trouble with Moscow after backing Chechen Islamofascist maniacs. Then, in 2000, Magammed himself is gunned down and wounded in Makachkala.

So, yeah, I think we can conclude that this is a legit guy. Here's a 2001 Atlantic article entitled The Caviar Thugs by Jeffrey Taylor, and it goes into what the Russians call Chornaya Ikra or black caviar. By this time in 2001, illegal poaching has depleted Russian sturgeon harvest from 10,000 tonnes in 1992 to just 500 tonnes in 2000.

The famed beluga has all but disappeared. Most of the guys actually getting the fish are ultra-poor farmers from these republics that are ripped up by war and corruption and religious extremist violence. says one of them to report a quote, I make $9 a month driving a tractor here, and they don't even pay me that on time.

I've got a family to feed, so I turn to the river. I managed to catch about five fish a year. At $185 worth of caviar of fish, that means $900. If I didn't poach, we couldn't eat. Yeah, you know, it kind of reminds me, I think, sometimes of the quotes you used to hear about articles about, like, poaching in Africa of endangered animals

and things like that, right? But it's kind of, yeah, I mean, it's always, like these guys at the, like the guys who are making the real money off this, you know, they're not the ones out there fucking, you know, fishing or shooting animals, right? It's always like the lower level that do that. It doesn't. And again, like, that's why I kind of don't bind to the excuse, right? I mean, it sucks, but like, it's always going to be like that. Yeah, for sure. Actually reminded me of, uh, of us. I like, I like the phrase. I like the phrase, so I turn to the river. Maybe we can make a t-shirt about that, but, um, the services are

supposed to engage these, like the law enforcement services, that is. They're supposed to engage these small-time poachers, but getting around those guys follows a pretty simple blueprint. Quote, when the authorities encounter a poacher, they must by law take his fish and row, and even officers who accept bribes do so. This provision practically guarantees that poaching enriches the law enforcement agency is ostensibly working to eradicate poaching. Former poachers I spoke with describe what typically happens when a militiaman intercepts a poacher. The officer releases the poacher in exchange for a bribe, and then, following the law, takes the caveat to a store designated by the government as a buyer of conviscat or conviscated

row. The store buys the conviscat for the equivalent of about $18 a pound, a price set by local authorities. It will later transfer the money to state coffers. And Taylor goes on, quote, the militiamen demands an additional $10 a pound, which he pockets. The store then calls a trader and sells in the caviar for $60 a pound. When the deal is done, $18 a pound have gone to the state, 10 to the militiaman, and 32 to the store. The market value of Roe is $122 a pound in Astrakhan, that's the city on the Caspian. So the trader makes a profit of more than 100%, some of which he returns to the store clerk in order to ensure continue business. But all of these people, these are a small fry.

The big boys, the so-called Mafiosni-Barakashi, or Mafia poachers, they make thousands a month. They live in big houses on the coast, and they ride into the middle of the Caspian on big skiffs with powerful Yamaha motors. And no one else has got these boats, right? So these guys just drop anchor and fish for the deep water sturgeon out of the reach of copse or smaller crims.

They cut open a live sturgeon, take the eggs and they dump the carcasses back in the sea. They do most of their business in the Russian city of Astrakhan, which is just mentioned, where they take the caviar to safe houses, they pack them in ice and the trunks of their car, then they drive them near 1,000 miles to mafia leaders in Moscow. From there, it often heads to breast in Belarus, then out into Western Europe and eventually the states. Here's a quote from the website caspica.org, quote,

criminal clans daily bring to Moscow half a ton of black caviar this delicacy is delivered by rail road and air the valuable product is hidden in caches only trusted couriers brackets conductors in trains stewardesses and truck drivers close brackets work for criminals trains planes and trucks from the caspian region are rarely inspected the police as a rule do not stop smugglers black caviar is quickly delivered to the capital's restaurants, secret apartments, and markets. Man, so the sturgeons are just completely wiped out these days, huh? Like, there's just something about poaching, I think, as opposed to other way more violent and crimes, like, targeted at humans. But for some reason, just, like, infuriates me way more, you know? Is that, is that weird? No, not at all.

It feels like, it's like littering. It's like, it seems so, I don't know. It seems so. Like against the world. Yeah, exactly. As opposed to like against the union. You're like getting rid of this thing that's existed forever. I don't know.

It enrages me. No, man. My uncle, I just remembered one of my crazy uncle who's done a bunch of amazing things. He had a movie script he was trying to sell like 25 or 30 years ago, I think. That was about a guy like a serial killer or like a who hunted down like poachers or people like poaching mafias. And he was like going around like snipers. like sniping these people and stuff like that. I don't know.

It was kind of cool. Yeah, that is pretty cool. Like, would I be totally against the guy like that? I don't know. I mean, actually in September, I'm going out to do a story that's similar to that in the pool. Yeah, watch this space. This guy that like stops people poaching tigers.

That is exactly why I wanted to do the story. Something about it felt like truly nice that someone would do this and poaching feels really shitty. But yeah, I was watching a Journeyman documentary while I was researching this, and there's a woman talking about how Sturgeon, and I think she was in Kazakhstan on the Caspian, has gone down to like a one single figure percentage of what it was. And she's like basically crying. There's all these sturgeon dead cut open and the carcasses are floating to the top of the lake.

And it is, it's heartbreaking. It's really, really horrible. Yeah, man. Yeah. And so this crime isn't in Russia, right? You've got a problem in Kazakhstan, which is on the northeastern corner of the Caspian. And they've pretty much run out of fish. I mean, if you know about that area and the Aral Sea, it's just an environmental disaster in that part of the world.

There's also a ton of poaching in Romania where the sturgeon come up the Danube River to lay their eggs. Over 70% of sturgeon there, the scientist, tag. So that's the ones that anti-poaching scientists keeping tabs on, they are poached. So when you've got folks on a few hundred bucks a month on average at best, and these fish can earn them thousands, I mean, I'm not really sure what you can do to stop the crime. Vigilante justice. True, yeah. Bring back hanging for anything, really. Let's just have public executions.

No, let's not do that. But just like we heard in the cold open, right, this stuff is going on right in the heartland of the US. So how do you get from corruption and crime on the Caspian Sea to a mob flocking to the tiny Missouri town of Warsaw? Well, I'm going to start with a great 2019 long-reides article by David Govey Herbert. Quote, Not long ago, Mike Reynolds was working at Cody's bait and tackle when two men entered the shop with a jingle. He identified them right away by their accents as Russian. The two men began rifling through fishing poles that didn't yet have price tags.

Reynolds asked them to stop. They ignored him and continued to lay rods on the floor. Reynolds, then 57, had seen plenty of Russians come through the shop, which sits on a quiet dam-access road in Warsaw, Missouri, deep in the Ozarks. He was tired than poaching the town's beloved paddlefish, sick of their entire attitude too. I mean, I'm just going to take a little aside to say that this is an incredible way of dressing up a guy being completely racist towards a Russian, two Russian fellas

shopping in his store as some kind of like a hero. But anyway, it goes on, quote, so when he asked them to leave and they did not comply, I mean, come on, Mike. Like, that is not okay. There seemed to be only one option left. Do you want to take a little time out to guess what it is? Oh, yeah.

He removed a .40 caliber pistol from under the counter, chambered around and placed it on the counter. I fear for my life, he said, in a slow, deliberate draw. I mean, that's some like Reddit attorney fucking YouTube guy being like, this is how you can get away with killing somebody in your store. I don't think it works that way. Yeah, Mike Reynolds is a fucking psychopath.

Anyway, it goes on. He wanted to cover his bases legally for whatever came next. The two men looked up, backed out of the store and never returned. I mean, yeah, that's not how you do business. It was just another dust up in the long-running war between Caviar Mad Russians, local fishermen and the feds that centers on this unlikely town in the Ozarks and a very curious fish. I mean, maybe he's trying to, you know, do what we were talking about, like get rid of the poachers. So on the one hand, kind of a psycho, on the other hand, you know, you got to do what you got to do.

Yeah, I mean, luckily for Mike, there's more of the story that comes afterwards. But taken alone, that is not a good anecdote for his grandkids to read. These shady Russians then And I mean, is there any any Ever any Russian in a long form mark or isn't shady? They're not after sturgeon, But they're after something called the American paddlefish. That is a long sturgeon-like creature

With a shark's streamlined shape And what kind of looks like a wooden spoon for a snout Which I guess is why folks call them spoonbills is a nickname. To fishes have snouts, I'm not sure. Herbert calls them, quote, The Roomba of the Ozarks, vacuuming up plankton with open mouths. Little Warsaw, population just 2000,

is the self-titled paddlefish capital of the world. Congratulations to Warsaw. Yeah, well done, guys. Well done. Another T-shirt in the making there. It's popular because spawning fish are blocked from heading upstream along the Osage River by this dam,

but you guessed it, paddlefish eggs taste a little bit like Russian caviar, if a fair bit worse. And in the early 2000s, Warsaw starts filling up with Eagerbeaver Russian emigrades writes Herbert quote A different breed of Russian was arriving in town

I mean Herbert's he's got an issue with Russians at the old Orr House flashy imported cars With out-of-state plates arrived every spring most of the men didn't have fishing experience but they drop hundreds of dollars on bait and tackle higher guides

and drink vodka shots with breakfast and they developed a reputation for overfishing oh my God overfishing and out of state plates, someone's got a call with feds. Warsaw is hit by caviar chaos. That's the worst kind of chaos. Yeah, it really is.

Folks are exchanging $10,000 of dollars of paddle fish eggs out of the back of beat up motels. I mean, now I'm getting into Herbert style. Artisanal processing plants are popping up on Main Street and they're all just paying eight bucks for a license to fish on the town's tiny little dock. Wishing you could be there live for the big game,

soaking up the atmosphere in the crowd, but too often, life gets busy, or the price holds you back. Priceline is here to help you make it happen. With millions of deals on flights, hotels, and rental cars, you can go see the game live. Don't just dream about the trip. Book it with Priceline.

Download the Priceline app or visitpriceline.com. Actual prices may vary, limited time offer. Whatever your thing. It could be anything. Canva helps you make that thing a thing. Canva is a simple online tool thing. It's a way to design with our magic AI tool things. You can social media your thing.

Generate images or videos of your thing. Make decks for presentations to show your thing. Whatever needs to be done for your thing, Canva can make it an even better and bigger thing. Canva, the thing that makes anything a thing. This isn't, like we said, the first time the spoonbills of attracted gangsters. In the 80s, Rob Farr, a local agent with the Department of Conservation, found pregnant females split open with their eggs snatched.

That's spoonbills, by the way. That operation involved guys who took the eggs onto Tennessee, then out to fancy spots on the East Coast. Around 2009, Greg Hitchings, an investigator with the Missouri Department of Conservation, he gets a call. There's fish guts. I can't even say that with a straight face. There's fish guts showing up all over the roadhouse. That's the name for the watery region of the state in which Warsaw sits.

Hitching spots a chance for an undercover op, something he is really good at. One time, he even put an agent behind the counter of a taxi dermy store to catch hunters bragging about illegal kills. He hooks up with Farr, who tells him about this new wave of paddlefish mafiosos and their strange Eastern European accents. Remember guys, any year. the European accent in Missouri is shady. Between them, Hitchens and Fahatch a plan to bring the poachers of Warsaw, Missouri

right to their door. I mean, these guys sound like the kind of rogue officers who get results. You know, like they might not play by the book handed down to them by the Missouri Department of Conservation or Conservation, but like they sure as hell get the job done by any means necessary. Yeah, yeah, he's a maverick. These are maverick cops, that conservation cops, sorry. Remember those $8

Passes to fish at the dock? Well, the guy is selling them is the Department of Conservation Stoge and he's wearing a hidden camera on his shoulder. I mean, shoulder just sounds like a weird spot for a hidden camera like, oh yeah, here's just my 18th century epaulette. Cool, huh?

Oh, and there's this friendly guy running the docks called Gary Hamilton who lives in a camper van 15 yards up the hill nearby. Yeah, yeah, that's obviously Greg Hitchens, of course it is. And they're ethnic Belarusians, Ukrainians, Russians, and they're just incriminating themselves left, right and centre on camera.

They're even writing down all their personal details into the Docks Logbook, which is, of course, evidence. Foreign Hitchens have this whole panopticon set up in Warsaw. They even snag a pair of Colorado and Belarusians buying three female paddlefish on a parking lot, operated by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Whoops, now you've just committed a federal crime, guys.

Yeah, I mean, throwing a murder, and this really is a perfect law and order episode. Yeah, I mean, I refuse to believe that those script writers didn't read this story first. Sure. And of course, these paddlefish gangsters, they love a vodka. And one night Hitchens, or Hamilton, wakes in his trailer to the sound of a fight breaking out nearby, writes Herbert, quote, weapons were everywhere, beer bottles, fishing gaffes that resembled an oversized dentist sickle probe, conceal hanged. guns, a fisherman waved a paddle in self-defense.

Knife, another shouted. He's got a knife. Fist began to connect with dull fuds. A man went down. Blood poured from his face. Yeah, I mean, I've got questions about that. First of all, do you know what sickle probe is? What?

Concealed handguns, do you mention that if you're describing what happened in a thing? And, uh... It's also, it's Missouri. Like, everyone is going to have. have a gun. I mean, like, someone getting punched in the face, that's, you know, that's a punch. Fists connect with dull fuds. That's a punch man. Anyway, he's wrung every ounce of out of a single dust up there, but this is unsurprising, right, given that these eggs that these guys are after,

they can fetch hundreds of thousands of dollars on the Russian black market if they're mislabeled, that is, a sturgeon caviar. And I mean, look, I'm sure you can taste the difference if you really know what you're talking about, but kinds of assholes who bump caviards. at New York loft parties, they ain't going to have the first clue. You can probably just give them rabbit shit and they tell you, like, had COVID-beaten properties or something. What does that, what does that mean? Yeah, I just assume that these, like, luxury website owners, anti-vaxxers, I don't know why. Anyway, here's where it gets kind of funny.

This Missouri caviar ring that Far and Hitchens are busting, they think it goes all the way to the top. A paddlefish conspiracy roping in New Jersey dockers. Steve Adores in Baltimore. I mean, I've got to get that reference in there somewhere. And black-suited mafia bosses in Moscow. The truth? They never find one. Whether it exists or not is one thing.

But what's true is that the few folks they arrest seem only to be small-time crooks. And some of them, they just really miss home and they like caveat. Yeah, I mean, you know, you find that out and you kind of look back at this story. And it's kind of, it's a different movie now, right? Now it's like Seth Rogen and Kevin Hart or Kevin James. just like bumbling, delusional, like, wildlife officers in Missouri. I think they've stumbled on to, like, a plot from, I don't know, what's it called? What's the Denzel Washington?

Whatever. A plot from, like, Mission Impossible. Or like the Russian mafia all over the place. I mean that. The pacifier, whatever that Denzel Washington thing is? Yeah. Equalizer. Equalizer.

Yeah. Instead, it's just like, that's a bunch of, like, drunken guys who probably, you know, work construction an hour and a half away that just really want caviar. I mean, I feel like the second half of this entire pod episode is really like a psychodrama of David Gobi-Hover, the guy that wrote this article. But anyway, moving on. It's hardly the gang thriller any of us ever after here. But it's definitely pretty comical. Anyway, that is the history of crime and caviar guys.

And how a weird little delicacy has ended up defining black markets all over the world. It's pretty mad, huh? Now, I'm off to next and fish eggs and vodka. Always great that I'm six hours ahead of you. Yeah, I mean, enjoy yourself. That sounds like a fun little evening in Berlin. Oh, yeah.

But yeah, I think that that wraps it up. Enjoy, I guess you guys will hear this after the fourth or before the fourth, whatever. Hope you enjoy it the weekend. Patreon.com slash the Underworld podcast. Help us keep doing this. Also, add free. You know, I did the math.

And if you listen to every episode that comes out, That's like 12 to 15 minutes of ads, right, over the course of a month. And if you just pay $3 a month to us, you get that ad free. I mean, 15 minutes of your time is definitely worth $3 a month. You know what I'm saying? That's a sales page. To the people listening to this, yeah. I mean, our time is worth absolutely fuck all.

No, not at all. But that's a sales pitch right there. Anyway, later, later everyone. Take care. Enjoy your holiday. Ryan Reynolds here from Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for $15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities.

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