The Underworld Podcast - New Years/Christmas Q + A!!!!!

Episode Date: January 2, 2024

Danny and Sean jump in on all of your questions for this Christmas New Years week specia; Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Fit for your ambition for Citizens Bank. Back to another episode of the Underworld podcast. The podcast radio program, where two journalists, myself Danny Gold and my partner in Crime, Sean Williams, take you on a journey every week into the world of international organized crime. This week, though, we are not doing that. It is the week between Christmas and New Year's, you know, we're not supposed to do anything. But Sean and I have chosen, you know, the wrong paths in life. So we are actually putting in the work because we made a deal with the devil, the content devil.

And we're here to, you know, feed the beast. But, Sean, you're about to go on vacation, though, aren't you? I'm off to Aussie. So I'm going to Australia. I don't know if it counts. Last time I went to Bougainville, I stopped in Brisbane for a couple of nights on the way there and they're back. So I'm off to Sydney on New York. years Eve. So I'm going to see some fireworks. I'm going to see some cricket and hang about by a

pool and do all the things I should be doing right now. Yeah, it's going to be good. Are you abandoning your child to do that? Unless I leave him to wander around the pool and drown, then no. Yeah, I might, I might wander off and see some, you know, professional sport without him. But no, it's a family. It's a first family holiday. I think it's the first one. Yeah. Well, you know, with all this Patreon money flowing in. Of course, you can, you can take your family on like an hour and a half long flight. But, yeah, we are going to do a Q&A for you guys. We asked for questions from the, from the patrons, and then also on Instagram, and I think on Twitter, anywhere else.

But some of you even wrote in with some questions. Most of you just had really not nice things to say about Sean, which, you know, I disagree with. Yeah, so without, you know, much further ado, Sean, do you have anything to add to that? No, no, all good. Great, great, let's get going. Okay, so first question is from Alec. He says, you're our favorite, my favorite podcast, which, you know, good.

I send it there. And can you do more reporting or give more information on Honduran youth selling fentanyl on the streets on the west coast of the U.S.? I live in the Bay Area and fentanyl is rampants? Yeah, I mean, I don't know too much. I know obviously people are selling a lot of fentanyl all over, especially on the West Coast and in Philadelphia, but I do not know about Honduran youth selling it on the streets of the West Coast.

I imagine it's coming up from Mexico and there's the normal gangs that have the distribution networks there that might be Central American and Mexican as well, Mexican American or Mexican in general. But I don't know specifically about Honduran youths that I assume that they're not the only ones doing it, Um, sounds kind of, kind of personal.

I don't know. Do you have any insight into that? No, I mean, I was going to say on a Honduran front, like, uh, I remember when I was out in Belize last, God, like 18 months ago. And I love the Belize and guys. With the rapper, shine story. Yeah, yeah. Um, and I was talking to these kind of like raster gangsters in Belize city.

And they were all pretty deep with the Hondurans back in the day in the 90s and early 2000s. And they were saying that's where they got the majority of their drugs and guns. So maybe I could tap up a few old contacts from there and we could do a piece on that. I should have done it at the time really, but that's pretty much my only understanding of Honduras at all. I don't really know anything about it. Yeah, I mean, they had, you know, like El Salvador, they had the 18th Street and MS-13 there. And I also kind of wonder, it'd be interesting to look into this, what the deal is now that Buceli is pretty much shut down the gangs in El Salvador.

or if they flowed outward into surrounding countries, if they're more in the states right now that are involved maybe in selling on the streets. But I really like to, you know, I think it was Honduras and Guatemala had serious gang problems. So I'd be interested to see what was going on there. But you know, Honduras has always had a pretty, not always, but I think there's definitely been people

that have gone down there the past 15, 20 years that have done really good work on the gangs. But Kyle, that doesn't answer your question, but it's the best we can do. Yeah, I mean, I would just give a shout out for Guatemala City, which is probably the scary, or outwardly most scary gang city that I've ever been to. Oh, really?

I didn't even have... Three nights there, like years ago, and it was fucking terrifying. Yeah, people, like, shooting guns on flatbeds and, like, openly... You can just see the stuff going on the streets. It was pretty rough. This was back in 2017 or something like that. So I hope it's changed for the better now,

but rough, rough, yeah. Sorry, that was Alec. This is Kyle. He says maybe more on the Russian mob wars and the Irish mob are about the relationship between organized crime and politicians in India. That is not a question,

but I will take all of those things into consideration. I think we have some good, in terms of episodes coming up, you know, I'm due to talk to our friend, Hugo, about the Swedish gang wars that have been going on. Yeah. He is a mom-more resident who follows up,

up closely. A friend who is going to do an episode with us, I think the next one maybe on, what was his name? Seychilop,

the guy that, Oh yeah, yeah, the syndicate. Yeah. Yeah, so I want to walk through that too.

I got a bunch of stuff on the Vancouver gang wars that are going to be good. And Sean, you got some stuff cooking up too, don't you? Yeah,

I'm going to do one on Tijuana. I don't know if anyone's been watching the news lady, but there was this crazy story with it. It was just like basically be a sort of narrative straight from a Sakario movie. Like a bunch of cops stole a bunch of cartel, Coke.

And in the last few weeks, the cartel has been running around, just popping off all of the cops who did it. So we're going to talk to Luis Chapar as well. He's been out there. I think he's still out there this week. So that's going to be my next episode. And then, yeah, I think I'm going to maybe do something on Mesrine, Jacques Mesrine.

He was like one of the biggest gangsters in French history, moved over and joined the quad. Beck Freedom Movement. There's a great movie with Vincent Kassel about him. So yeah, there's a bunch of different stuff. And then there's some reported things that I'm going to get into next year. Maybe in New Zealand and Australia as well because there's way, way more interesting stuff going on here.

So, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I'd love to do more stuff on India. I love India. I want to go there basically all the time. But that is such a massive shit show. It's hard to dig into one thing at a time. But they've got massive elections going on next year. so maybe we could do something around that.

Yeah, that I'm sure will be easy for journalists to go and report on. Next question, Samuel Patterson, where are we in the Ridwan Tagi trial? Because you did that episode Sean on the Macro Mafia, I think, right, and all that? Yeah, that's a good question. Where are we in that? Yeah, I mean, I was just doing a little bit of research. I mean, his son was arrested in Dubai in September. Of course, Dubai.

That's where a load of the stuff takes place. It's where he was kind of hiding out with the kinnens for a long time. And last week, three of his lawyers resigned saying they hadn't been given enough time to mount the proper defense, which is, I guess, a stalling tactic maybe. But back in summer, I think it was July, like middle of July, the judges on the case said there'd be a, quote, delay for months. So they think a verdict's coming pretty soon. I imagine it will.

But, yeah, just kind of suck it and see right now. We're going to see whether that comes out in the next month or two. we'll do something when he comes out because that's a huge, huge trial. Yeah, that's correct. I can't imagine he's going to get off, but who knows. To date, what's been your favorite episode of research and produce and the favorite one to learn about from the other co-host?

I don't know. In terms of research and produce, I guess the ones that I haven't done actual reporting on, the ones I've just researched favorite ones. I really liked learning about, I guess the Vancouver sort of gang wars like the Sikh stuff that was really interesting to me. Yeah. Because I didn't know anything about that.

It was really, it's a crazy, I forget the name of the main gangs that were doing there, but that was a crazy story to learn about. And then to learn from you, I don't know, I learned so much from you. I can't, I can't narrow it down. Yeah, it's too much. I can't narrow it down. I mean, you know, the Burma story I think is great, the one about the billion-dollar metham amphetamine.

Yeah. Yeah, there's more to come from that next year. Yeah, I think I really, like, I really loved your one in Clubland. That was really cool. And the recent one about Cuba and knocking off Fidel Castro or trying to knock off Fidel Castro, that's kind of like right in my wheelhouse of, I don't know, CIA spies and drugs of Mafios. So that was really cool.

The one that, I mean, the one that I really, really enjoyed researching that came out recently, and related to one that we did last year, it's kind of the Sahel, terror, gang, cocaine shipment kind of stuff. Yeah, that was fascinating. I find it so fascinating. It's like countries that most people don't really know about

and get a lot of column inches in the newspapers. And then if people want to go back and listen to the Guinea Bissau stuff, that is nuts. And I read one of the questions that someone's asked us later on, and I think I'm going to get into that at a bit more detail.

But yeah, both of those ones maybe my favorite ones to research in the last year or so. Right. Yeah. I mean, dude, I feel like almost every episode you do, I learn something interesting unless it's like about cricket in which you actually,

no, even the cricket one was I thought was, had some interesting stuff to it. Oh, man. That makes my heart sing. Next, we have our man, Beer, spill,

Phil, which great name, who's from Philadelphia. My dude, you wrote a novel over here, but there's a couple of questions here. Actually, about the cricket story.

Sean, do you, um, is there any potential cricket story? that we're confuse an audience that does not understand cricket even more as to how the game actually works. And I feel like the answer is all of them. Yeah, yeah. Only marginally more than that sentence.

But if I understand it correctly, I mean, look, Phil, I could go deep. You could have a two-hour podcast on like the physics of the Googly. So whatever you want, I got it. But it's getting, you know, like the best thing in the world is basically teaching American audiences about cricket. so I get to do a massive nut graph on what cricket is, which is the best thing in the world. But I reckon I've got one of those every three years. So I think it might be a while until I get anyone interested in Sports Illustrate.

Anyone at Sports Illustrate, interesting cricket again. I think the guy was saying, my editor was like, your first two stories have been rugby and cricket. So it's basically a miracle. And I'm trying to pitch him saying about darts at the moment. So if I get those three through, I don't know, maybe some kind of a sandman situation happens. I don't know.

but yeah, I mean, I'm always up for a cricket story, but I don't think many other people are. So that might be the one for a while. And then he wasn't sure from the article, was the one-x bet successful in attracting gamblers in India? Oh, they're huge, man. I just watched a series between, I think it was India and I'm going to say Bangladesh or something.

And there was like Onex bet post-holdings everywhere around the ground. They call it Onex Bat. there to get around the authorities. And they, there's just, it's huge. It's huge. It's like India is the biggest gambling, um, battlefield in the world. There's like this $150 billion gambling industry and almost all of it is illegal. So people are trying to kind of legitimize it or just take some of the illegal money.

And, uh, yeah, it's pretty, it's pretty rough. And that's kind of what that story was about is all of these even sort of Ukrainian and Russian companies trying to go for the Indian, the rupee. So, yeah, they're very, very, very successful. They basically didn't even bother responding to the story. And they seem to have just carried on regardless with sponsoring loads of cricket stuff. Even though there has been a bit of pushback, but there's some more to come on that front as well. I'm working on a few more things.

So we'll see how it goes. I respect that move these days. It's just like just not care, not issue a statement, not like, apologize. I was just like, don't care. Just keep going. Another question, too, from our man, beer, spill, Phil. What's the take on the trend in the U.S. media covering organized retail crime? There was a retraction from an industry group about it recently.

And it's just kind of, I guess, his main questions are, what are your thoughts on, organized shoplifting? Is anything either of you would be interested in doing? No, in researching or reporting on more and which aspects of it would you try to cover? I think someone actually asked us a while ago too for us to look into it. And I think, you know, I sort of think there's some nuance to the conversation, right? It's definitely a real thing. I don't think it's as widely pronounced as like some of the more aggressive articles, I think, say. But it's a real thing.

Like, there are organized rings that do this sort of thing. Like, Wright Aid and Dwayne Reed and CBS are losing, like, you know, substantial amounts of money by putting all their stuff behind lock and key. Businesses don't like to lose money. They wouldn't be doing that unless they felt that it was necessary. They can look at their bottom lines and see what it is. No one's doing that for fun or to prove a point, right? Because I go into those stores and I half the time,

I either leave without buying anything because it's too fucking hard to get someone to come unlock the thing or I buy way less than I was going to. And like the number one thing those stores want to do is have you buy their products. And like, you know, there's this thing where someone who's like a hyper-leftist online will be like, oh, they're stealing to feed their kids. It's like, no one's stealing 20 things of tide to feed their kids.

They're stealing it to hustle it and to make money and usually it's related to drugs. Do I think there's like huge organized rings where people are making millions of dollars? No. But do I think that people go in there with the objective of stealing a lot? Do I think there are smaller rings? yeah, I think that's pretty much a definitive thing. And if you look at some of the other articles about it, there's like, you know, look, I'm going off the top of my head here,

but there'll be stories about how, you know, 90% of the shoplifting from a certain store is done by the same 20 people and along those lines. So I think the answer to that falls somewhere in the middle. And, Sean, though, when you were here in the U.S., weren't you involved with doing organized shoplifting, or you were just doing that for fun for yourself? We're going to skip over that. But if anyone wants to look at something a lot more parochial on small scale,

but also quite funny, which is basically what everything in New Zealand is, there's this like one jewelry chain called Michael Hill in the whole of New Zealand, and they just got absolutely murked by an organized series of like hits basically all over the country. I think it's like within two months. So even like in Wellington, just down the road from us, like only a block away, which is like the safest,

most quaint little place. There's security guards at this Michael Hill branch and everyone's terrified, so it's quite funny. Like a break-in, like a robbery? Or like a- Yeah, yeah, like break-ins. I think it's to do with the two big bikey gangs,

so the Mongrel mob and the black power. But yeah, it's happening. But I guess it's like on a smaller scale than New York, obviously. but it's similar. These are just sort of opportunist things that are tied to bigger groups, but they're not like a business model

for these groups. They're shifting drugs. I don't really give a shit about, you know, bangles. But yeah, it's happening. Yeah, I mean, if you work in retail, you're expected to, anyway, you know what? Let's not get into that and discuss previous youthful indiscretions.

But he has a follow-up question, too, about car thefts with the Kia stuff and the stuff in places like Philadelphia in the Northeast U.S. Are people stealing for money or for the thrill of it? I have no idea. I don't know what the motivations are.

I mean, obviously there are some cases of people joyriding. Yeah, I got no idea. I think there are cases of people joyriding stuff in Philadelphia. I've definitely seen reports of that. I assume there's money in it. If it's like 15 and 16-year-olds,

generally I think it's stuff's for the thrill. But I assume, like, shop shops are still a thing and like stealing cars. And I know that was a big thing in New Jersey and in Oakland's with organized like luxury car, luxury carjacking and theft, you know, and they would get on boats and ship them out to West Africa. That was a huge thing for a while.

I'm not sure. I feel like with newer cars and newer technology, can't they trace things easier? Yeah, I don't think they have a lot of the shit that people went for back in a day either. He mentions catalytic converters. I don't think anyone next. Catholic converters these things.

Do they? Dude, of course. Yeah, of course they do. Really? That stuff. I got my knicked like three years ago. Yeah, dude, that's huge. Okay.

Catalate converters is a huge thing. And much easier to get away with than, uh, than still in a car because you get under a car. You can have one. So long. Yeah, you can have one out in like four or five, four or five minutes, maybe even less. And then, and then flip it. And it's like, you just go into a car, pick a few up.

And they used to hit my neighborhood nonstop. Yeah, dude. Oh, man. I, I remember it being a huge thing back in London. like when I was, God knows how young I was then, but I just assumed that that had gone out fashion, but yeah. No, dude, that is huge in the States, like huge. Yeah, fucking ruin my month.

It costs like a G to replace. It sawed mine out. It was worth, my fucking car wasn't worth $1,000 when that happens. But beer spill, Phil, man. Thanks for the kind words and the many questions. This is, is this entertaining a Sean? Do you think anyone's going to listen to this all the way through? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's keep going. There'll be some hapless fools who's going to, Henry Smith, what crimes or rackets, if any, do you respect for their cunning or ingenuity? I mean, I don't know. I mean, just people who don't get caught, you know, I think the credit card scan, like the 17, 18-year-olds who figured out how to credit card scam for a while, like, that's always a, that was a smart thing to do. You know, you don't get a lot of years on it. What was the Bitcoin credit card thing that I talked about way long ago where they were, you? using Bitcoin to purchase stolen credit card and make their own credit cards.

Like that's always a good, that's a good scheme. And I respect it because it's not, you're not, like the cost benefit analysis, you know, if you're going to break the law, you know, why do something where you're going to get untold amount of years for pocket change? Like these guys were going for big money and the, I don't know, it wasn't super, costly. Yeah, I mean, anyone from a really poor country who gets involved in. stuff that isn't just outwardly killing people, you know, whatever.

I don't really care. Like, yeah, if you, I mean, I want to, I think I read one of the questions further down and I want to talk about Haiti because what's going on there is pretty horrendous, but like, you cannot. The jurors sat in a dark room, hands resting on a Ouija board. They weren't guessing. They were asking the victim who killed them. Sounds unbelievable, right?

But it happened. And that's just one of thousands of stories. is waiting for you on Morning Cup of Murder. Hi, I'm Karina B. Meesterfer, and every single day on Morning Cup of Murder, I bring you a real, chilling, true crime story connected to that exact day in history, from Killer Cannibal Brothers to the Boy Scout who was obsessed with the occult, and the strange story of the bloody hammer in the frozen cabin. These aren't the cases you've heard a hundred times. They're the ones that make you stop and think, how have I never heard this before? With over 2,500

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It's like the underlying stuff, I don't know, maybe someone's going to complain that I'm being too woke or whatever, but it's like, you know, in that's the hell episode, right? Who's going to tell some guy from Niger that he's not going to traffic cigarettes across a border? Whatever, that's fine. That's okay.

Is that cunning or ingenuity? No, probably not. I'm trying to think of anyone that's been like really clever. Yeah, cigarette. I think cigarette smuggling, like in the States even. Yeah, definitely, definitely think that's a good look. And even, you know, people, you know, drug dealers who sell, I think higher price drugs or stuff.

Like people, you know, not talking crack or heroin, but people who, you know, it's a lot of work. People don't realize that. Like being a drug dealer is really hard. You've got to be available. You know, you can't just, like, not show up to a client. You've got to be on the move all the time. Like, delivery service drugs is a really hard business to run.

People don't really, people think it's easy. It's not easy. We stand drug dealers. I mean, I'm just saying, like, there's a lot of work ethic that goes into it that people don't realize. But our next question is, would the pod legalize drugs?

And I mean, I don't know about you. I actually, I go back and forth. I think there were definitely times when I think I would say yes, but I don't think that's the case now. I feel like when you look at places where they've tried to do stuff like that, it's mostly not been good.

Yeah. Like, I think, I mean, I don't know what's going on in Portugal, right? Weren't they big on that with decriminalizing and having social services? I mean, that, if you do do it, you've got to really ramp up social services. But I also just think of myself, you know, if, I mean, not now because I'm boring now,

but like if stuff is easier to get, like, you're going to do more of it. And that's like any vice, you know what I'm saying? I think obviously the drug war does way more harm than good. But I don't really have an easy answer to that. I just think that obviously there's a lot of drugs I think that should be legalized. you know, when you go a bit higher to, you know, crack, Coke, heroin as well. I mean, it's pretty, yeah, that's terrible shit. I mean, I just don't think, um, yeah, I don't know, I don't think that stuff should be

super available anywhere, even like we just know, like it shouldn't be. It's weird, right? People should be protected from it. Yeah, it's like, I remember speaking of Fender Feldberg Brown, who's like, I don't know, I just defer to her for most things of this kind of. She's like the world expert on all this stuff. Yeah, she was saying that the Netherlands, Scotland and Portugal, she mentioned as well. They've got like really good harm reduction systems in place,

but they also have really shit outcomes. So it kind of needs either more investment. It's kind of one of those things where you're just like, oh, we just need more money for this true system to come into place. But, you know, politically no one's going to pay fucking half the GDP just to make drugs available. So I don't know. It's really tough.

I mean, the fentanyl stuff like that is terrifying. You can't legalize that. That's just impossible. Cocaine, maybe. That's a different matter. But it's like such a mind-filled. I mean, like, I guess all we can say is what, what's happening now doesn't work. So we need to change that.

But if you want policy answers, then go to someone else. Yeah, I'm not your guy. Like, I don't get paid to think about that. Like, I don't have. have any answers for any of this stuff. Legalized weed and ecstasy, that's what I would say. Let's do that. Come find me 10 years ago and I'll talk about this stuff with you all night.

Now, I just, I don't, I don't care. Liam Dunn, what do you guys like about each other the most? What a sweet question, Liam. Oh, that's nice. Sean is, you know, Sean's a very handsome man in person. I got to tell you guys. But I guess that he like puts up with all this. And he's also game.

He's like game for anything. You know, I came to him with this idea and he was like, yeah, fuck it. Let's go for it. I mean, let's be honest, he didn't have many options, but like, he was up for it, and he still was up for it, and he puts the work in, and he's a great right. I mean, what don't I like about? Well, mostly, like, his jokes. Wow.

And he's, like, the only person that's worse at, like, business aspects than I am. Like, I thought I'd link up with someone to, like, run a business, which this, I guess, technically is. And, like, yeah, he'd, like, come in here and, and figure it all out. But, no, we're both terrible with that. How long did it take for me to say? my bank details to you for the latest amount of money. You kept,

this was money you were owed, like a substantial amount. It wasn't that you didn't, it took you a long time to send them to me. You just kept sending me the wrong ones. And I'd be like, Sean, this is like a lot of money and like it could get lost.

And he was like, yeah, yeah, I think this is it. I think this is it. And I'm like, you should be sure when you're having someone send you money

of what your information is. Yeah. And we're talking about, you know, because it's podcasting, we're talking about a hell of a lot of money here as well. Yeah. This is big.

big dollars. A lot of money, a lot of money for us. I think that you are far better at speaking about stuff on the cuff than I am and you've got far better mine for that kind of stuff because you've done a lot of it. And when I came to the podcast, I was basically just a nerd with a notebook, which is not what I'm not now. But yeah, you're way better at that. And I think you're way better at kind of speaking about things and I don't know, like communicate and proving. you're wrong literally on this podcast, on this episode. You also, you also know shit about a lot more than I do. I feel like I know exactly the amount about organized crime that I write about in the pod scripts and almost nothing more. So you, you can like wander off on all kinds of stuff. You seem to

read a hell of a lot of shit. So yeah, kudos to you. You know, I want to keep going because I would say your writing has gotten four, like you're a writer writer, you know, so it's hard to switch from writing articles to writing for voiceover, whether it's talking of video. Yeah. It's really hard. And I only knew because I had to switch years ago.

But you've gotten a lot better at that. And your reads are really good too. Like there's barely any edits anymore. So you really need to go back to the early ones to see how it could be. You've improved your game and the way you speak and all that sort of stuff. Well, there you go.

That's a nice end to the year. Cam McArdo. Biggest organized crime moment of 2023. I don't know. I think you put an answer here. Ovidio Guzman, arrest and extradition. I think, yeah, that was huge, huh? That's huge.

Yeah, yeah. Because it's like, that's genuinely going to shake up. Like, not just organized crime in the Sina Loa cartel, but it's actually going to make a huge difference politically in Mexico as well. Because Amlo, I think we've spoken about a million times on the shows, like hugs, not bullets or whatever the shit he said, the stupid stuff. And now he's kind of gone full circle and realized that doesn't work. and I think there was the arrest and execution of that major

was it like the army officer I think I spoke to Kinghampton about that and it's kind of like turning I think back to early maybe Vincenti Fox sort of years in Mexico where they're actually going to start going after people and even though there was like you know war on the streets that guy or video is like I think he's he's facing trial now I think it's going ahead

so yeah that's a really really, really big moment right there. That's kind of maybe an about turn for Mexico. And secondly, I wanted to talk about barbecue, this guy. You probably know a lot more about this than I do, but he's basically taken over Porter Prince and sort of trying to take over Haiti. I mean, like, you know more about this, right?

How big... This guy has been on every documentary going and every single TV station. He loves media. I didn't realize, so I haven't been tuned into that for the past, I think, four or five months. since things got really bad, I think, when we initially did an episode on it.

I didn't realize that he, because I thought it was competing gangs, I didn't realize that he had pretty much taken over the city on his own. Yeah, he's like bunched them all together, right? So now he's kind of the king of the underworld there. Or, I mean, it's not even the underworld, right? He just owns the streets.

The government, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's pretty terrifying stuff going on there. And I mean, Buckela is doing his own thing and sort of arresting every... Oh, yeah, that's a huge story, too. Him just completely shutting down the gangs in El Salvador, I feel like considering the work that we've done on El Salvador, that feels pretty big.

Patrick Cummings, do you generate your own story ideas for the show or for your longer written reporting, or do you take a sign pitch from media entities? How do you find out about obscure underworld figures? For the show, we mostly, I think, yeah, I mean, I come up with them ourselves every now and then someone writes a recommendation. We had a lot of recommendations. Very often, yeah, some of them are good.

them are good. A lot of them sometimes are like on stuff we've already done, which, uh, you know, it is what it is. There's a lot of episodes. But, uh, no, I mean, back when I was a freelancer, it was almost always stuff that I generated on my own. Uh, every now and then I'd get someone coming to me with the story. The two podcasts I'm making now that are, are going to be out, uh, this coming year that are like documentary style. Uh, they came to me with the story or with the, um, with the main characters and I sort of had to figure out the story. So, uh, that's, that's been obscure Underwell figures. I don't know, man.

I just read a lot on this stuff. Once it became a part-time job, you kind of have to dive yourself into it, and then people come to you with stuff. So it gets, I don't know, it gets interesting. Yeah, I would say, with the stories coming to you kind of thing, it's like a snowball, right?

So the more stories you do, the more stories are going to come to you. I mean, the amount of features that have come to me off the back of other features is just, I mean, it's like 90% of them. And yeah, I mean, at the start, I was obviously like pitching my ass off. And I mean, like, you really do have to pitch a million times a month to get any work when you start out. And then people start coming to you.

And then because I really want to do these, like, expansive, giant esoteric stories about fucking sports betting and cricket, then I tend to be the one reaching out and trying to do them. I'm trying to pitch a story about the world's champion Scrabble player at the mind. moment. So that is a hard sell, but I will sell it, I promise. And yeah, I mean, it's similar to you. Like, how do you find out about obscure figures? Like, this guy in the latest episode, the Sahel, I remember speaking to a reporter, Lorraine is her name, and she is Scottish, but she does a lot of work in West Africa. She's really, really cool. I think she works on the, is it a Transnational Organized Crime Index, one of those ones? She does a lot of work for them.

and she was interested in Guinea Bissau and also she had mentioned someone called the El Chapo do So there's not a lot of stuff about him out there actually It's like pretty fresh ground So I would suggest any young freelancers who don't mind getting their head chopped off Then just get a flight out to the army and try and figure out

stuff about him but yeah Don't do that read read read read read yeah don't do that No don't do that don't do that No just read books and play PS5 instead but yeah, that's kind of how it works. Next question is from Reese. How did you get into professional journalism and what would you have done differently?

I would not have gotten into professional journalism, Reese. Are we even in professional journalism? Yeah. You know, people are like, oh, you know, I want to make a difference or I want to go on adventures. And you don't really do, you know, some people get someone exonerated for murder

and that's great and all that. But for the most part, you don't really make a difference and you get to go on an adventure somewhat but you know who gets to make a huge difference and going on adventures all the time rich people so yeah become one of those and then you can put your money into things and it'll be better you know look here's a thing if you're smart don't go into journalism just become rich and and use the money that you make to change to change to support people you want to support and to go on adventures if you're not that smart, you know, and you're just going to have some like, you know, office your own job where you

don't get to actually make a lot of money and go on adventures and change things. Maybe then go into journalism, but if you're smart, there's really no reason to do it. All right, so I have to be the angel on the shoulder, do I? I mean, like, what would I have done differently? I would have chosen my parents and background differently, so that's a main thing in British journalism. But, I mean, I got into professional journalism in a really winding way. I just wanted the right shit and my background, like all my family are builders and I grew up as a builder. I worked as a builder for like 10 years. So I didn't really know what you could do and make a living from writing. So someone suggested writing for a local newspaper, which is what I did

and worked in a part of London called Dagenham and Redbridge, which anyone listening to this pod who knows London is going to laugh their tits off because it's not a nice place. And it was run by the basically the national front, like the fascist, like openly fascist local government at the time. But that meant that it was really, really interesting. Then I went into documentaries and films and all kinds of stupid shit. And then I kind of wound my way back to doing freelance journalism. But what would I have done differently? I'd tell you what, on a really earnest, earnest, earnest note, like, it was like an incredible way to get into different parts of the world that you would never normally see. But I probably wouldn't have got as messed up as I did.

Like, I used to go partying and just do loads of crazy shit. And I probably should not have done half of that. But half of it was cool. But yeah, I don't know. You need to knuckle down, man. It's hard. And I'm not very good at it now. So who knows?

This one is from Hugo. One of my favorite underworld characters is Frank Booth from Blue Velvet. Have you ever encountered anybody that resemble that darkness attention? Is that Dennis Hopper? Yes, the Dennis Hopper complete psychopath. I mean, like, obviously not. No. Yeah, I don't know.

I met this one guy. I was just thinking about this, and there's one guy I met in Mumbai when I was doing a story about a hitman, trying to find this hitman, any fixer in the underworld who knew about this hitman that I was trying to find. I did find the guy eventually,

but there's a bit of a damp squid. But yeah, the fixer was called Dynish Patel. He was this, just had like 20 phones on him, and he was like covered in gold, but also like clearly off his, rocker on gear in some of some form and was really tetchy and always went around with this massive bodyguard who was wearing a shower camees and he was a patani which is like these gigantic sort of

Iranian Pakistani guys who everyone's scared of I might be getting that wrong but they're scary fuckers and he probably it for a crime story was as close as I've come to someone like that but no man I mean you're not going to meet Dennis Hopper So, yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I just don't think, I don't know, I feel like, you know, people don't talk like they do in movies for the most part. I mean, there's, you know, I'm talking to some like American mafia guys at the current moment and, you know, some of them are very charming and have a certain, they're older now, so maybe when they were younger, they were scarier. one of them has been through a lot so he's got just family wise and everything else

so he's got this darkness and tension in him that uh you know is pretty overpowering at times but uh you know it's uh yeah i don't know man i don't think you meet so many people that you're like this guy people go on to like have adventures it's a tough question nothing stands out to me maybe like

this leader of 18th street and i forget his name but like no one like again you know no one's jumping out to me. And if I can't remember their name, that maybe they're not as pronounced at that. I think this is why I do stories about different stuff and not just like one beat, because people are interesting, right?

It doesn't really matter what they're doing or where they're from. Like, people from different spheres can be super interesting, and other people do stuff that you think is really, really cool and off the hook can be boring as hell. And that's why they're good at it. So, yeah, I don't know.

From sports stars to musicians to drug dealers, you never know what you're going to get. Yeah, I mean, I've definitely met a lot of really interesting people, people who I'd love to know more about or kind of figure out what their story was or how they got to be like they are. Just not in that, not in like Dennis Hopper and Blue Velvet sort of way, you know? No. Here is one of our last questions. Matthew, a question for both of you, any crime, gang trafficking book

recommendations along that those lines. I think we always recommend Mick Mafia just because it's a really really good piece of work about that sort of stuff. Who is it who wrote the corporation? All those, TJ English just writes really good

crime books, you know? Yeah. Like fantastic about, I think the corporation, a bunch of others. I think he wrote one about the Westies. I think we've used like four of his books for different episodes along those lines.

Patrick Wynn, I think, Sean, you know him or still. Yeah. Patrick Winn, Narco Land and, yeah. Oh, No, Kotopia, isn't it? Narcotopia. I have a copy of it that I haven't read yet, but Hello Shadowlands, I thought, was really, really interesting. Just because I love those, like, Southeast Asia sort of stories. God, I wish I was home now, just because my whole shelf now is basically books like this

just because of the podcast and everything like that. Yeah, that's a really cool part doing this show. I would say on the other side of the coin, Moneyland by Oliver Bullough is like absolutely incredible. Showing how, I think he says like one sixth or one seventh for the money in the world is like basically dark money and goes, you know, is laundered. So that's a real eye-opener.

Because like it's not, I don't know, it's just like, you know, follow the money kind of stuff. And it really, really is crazy how much money is going into just like tax havens. and sort of, you know, I mean, real estate, we keep saying it, that kind of stuff.

That's a really great book. Kilo, Kilo by Texan. Toby News is a, he's a long-time friend and just an incredible book about the entire cocaine industry process,

everything from the farmers to the sellers to the cartel bosses in Colombia. It's really, you know, something else. Yeah, and if we're actually talking,

Talking about kind of vets of the pod, then Young Grillo's El Narcos. Yeah. An absolutely great read as well. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he, I think, what's his other book called? Oh, God. Now you're going to catch me out.

I don't know. Wait, the most, the recent one. Blood gun money. Blood gun money. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Gangster, gangster warlords, all that. But El Narco, I think, is probably the best out of all those. It's just an excellent, excellent book.

Yeah, I mean, for one of the recent episodes, I mean, it kind of is an offshoot of a project that I've been working on for about two and a half years now that's actually finished tomorrow, which is very exciting. But I read Christopher Robbins Air America, which is about how the CIA kind of like, you know, exploded the drug trade back in the 70s and the Secret War and Vietnam and that stuff.

That is a brilliant book. And he does some great reporting. And I think I kind of remember looking back on some stories in the newspapers at the time and like the whole world in their dog was refuting his journalism and saying that he was talking shit and it is all subsequently

proven to be true. So that's a great book. But there's tons. I mean like Alex Perry's Good Brothers that I think we did a show on that at the start of the year. That's brilliant kind of heartbreaking tale of the Andrangetta and the women that try and get out of it. Yeah, I mean there's so many. I mean, guys, we've got to reading this.

I mean, I don't think I've updated that in about two years. But, oh, what's it called the one about Bombay? Maximum City? Maximum City, yeah. Yeah, Suketumeta. That's brilliant. Yeah. I met him once years ago.

Very interesting guy. But, yeah, there's, I mean, there's a, and there's a lot of good books about, you know, how organized crime getting started. US in the early 1900. I mean, I love the original like gangs in New York, you know,

the like original one from Herbert Asbury, I think. And then Luke Sante, right, a low life, all those old school. Yeah,

murder ink. Oh, murdering's good. Yeah. Yeah. But, yeah, I mean,

I think that's enough, right? We gave you guys a, that's a pretty solid this right there. Yeah. I'm sure there's other really good ones

that we've forgotten that people who have come on the podcast. have written, so apologies, if that's the case. Yeah, I don't know, man, New Year in what, four days? Anything else you want to add? Any words of wisdom? Anything, I don't know.

Words of wisdom? No, I mean, just thanks for tuning in. Like, we've really, it's been a crazy year, right? We've, like, switch providers and had all these contract things going on, and it's been, like, kind of stressful at times. So, thanks to you guys for a... It's really stressful. It's just like working down a mine in Pakistan.

But yeah, it is really cool that you guys listen and you subscribe and those of you pay on the Patreon as well. Yeah, massive thank you to all of you guys. And keep listening and all that. So that's the fact that you guys have been with us some of you for years now. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think we're still both sometimes in awe that thousands of people, tens of thousands

people actually listen to this every week. But, you know, I guess the bar is set really low in terms of other, just in general, what's out there. But, you know,

I keep just mumbling over this. Anyway, yeah. Is this you ending on a high note? Okay. I'm just, I'm tired, man. Thank you guys for tuning in. Regular episode start again next week.

If this wasn't your liking, just go back. There's like 150 episodes. You'll find. Yeah.