The Underworld Podcast - The Shaman-Gangsters Who Built Indonesia

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

For centuries, brigands, gangsters and street toughs ruled the island of Java so thoroughly that they were woven into local myths. But in the 20th century, when the world bounded towards war, mob bosses in Jakarta spotted a chance to turn underworld kudos into an independent nation. When the war ended, and Indonesia dove into chaos, a handful of kingpins would emerge as the architects of a new, modern state. But the madness was only just beginning. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Jakarta, Indonesia November 1945 The city stinks of smoke, diesel, fuel And fear The war in the Pacific has been over three months, The Japanese have surrendered. The Dutch, Indonesia's centuries-old rulers, are scrambling to return.

But Indonesians have other ideas. They don't want to crawl back from war to the yoke of European colonialism. They crave independence for a republic. That's at the top level. On the streets, things are muchier. Power lies in the hands of whomever as the most men, the sharp its blades, and the most effective magic-infused amulets.

from the tight woven neighbourhoods of downtown Jakarta to the campongs or villages and every marketplace in between. Down here, laws have always half existed at best. Might is right. An independence and oftentimes abstract concept. One of those markets is the Pasa Sennin, close to the original Dutch settlement. On this morning, sellers arrived to discover three dumped corpses bound and faced down in a muddy dish. A handwritten sign is pinned to one of their chests. It's red ink still drying.

Pen Kianatriakat, it reads, traitor to the people. Everyone knows who's responsible. Imam Siafi, aka Bang Pi, is one of Jakarta's most powerful street bosses. Often when his father had been murdered to control of this very same market, P had been raised by a cleric and an aunt, gathered local kids into a gang,

and took Senen back. It's Pea's protection racket that thrives among the coward-stalled owners at Passar Sen-N, because they know precisely what will happen if they defy him. But Pei isn't alone. There's a whole league of bosses, so-called Premon, who thrived in the chaos of war and political turmoil to grow rich and wildly powerful. Men like Hajid Durit in nearby Klender, an ex-railway worker turned religious crime boss,

rumoured to inject mercury into his men's veins to grant the magical invincibility. Or Panji direct son-in-law, who escaped prison during the Japanese occupation to lead a ragged band of 300 fighters against and crucially for the Dutch. Because the permanent just rebel warriors fighting colonialism, they're navigating, using it, twisting it, towing the line between idealism and opportunism, swearing allegiance to flags not just a belief, but convenience. Bang Pei himself had followed such a route, leading a group of street tuffs, former

colonial soldiers and pickpockets at the end of the war, driving out British and Dutch troops, escaping from a prison van, and even seeing his gang absorbed into the regular army, a symbol of how Jakarta's underworld and its nation bid for independence have grown deeply entangled. Premonlight Pei can commit the triple murder in the city centre and disappear into the shadows. To many, they're untouchable. And by the end of the following year, 1946, the fledgling Indonesian Republic has welcomed them wholeheartedly into the fight for independence. These men are the Republic's muscle and its monsters, the blood-soaked engine of a state born out of chaos, charisma and coercion. A state forged not in the halls of power, but in alleyways, gambling dens, roadside checkpoints, not with

legal codes, but with knives, posters and magic spells. The history of Indonesia's underworld isn't just a footnote to the revolution. It is the revolution's very own beating heart. This is the Underworld podcast. Hello and welcome to the weekly podcast and video service where two JD members of the press media, Regal Ubel, details wild and strange, the global criminal marketplace. A marketplace of ideas, some good, most bad, just like the media. I am Sean Williams in New Zealand coming to you from my new house.

Actually, I'm in the kitchen because the studio didn't work because I haven't set up the Wi-Fi, so you're going to see a lot of boxes in the background. Keep it moving. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's been a fun week. Anyway, exciting times and I'm joined as ever by Danny Gold and sweary in New York City. How about those yanks, say, Danny? Sports balls, you've got to love it. Yeah, the bottom of the order is killing me, man. We're just wasting legendary performances by Judge and my boy Max Fried, you know, the reincarnation of Sandy Kofax, but

what can you do? They got to get it together. Stan will help out. We'll make it happen. Yeah, Stanton should probably start hitting balls if he wants to play for the next. Anyway, a quick reminder, we've got loads of stuff on our Patreon. If you could spare us a few bucks a month, it's ad-free shows, bonuses, and, of course, reading lists. Yeah, that's patreon.com slash aneworld podcast,

or sign up on Spotify or iTunes. The episodes, they come out ad-free and the night before, if that interest. I still don't understand how, like, you know, we have so many listeners, but just one-fifth of, like, you know, Bill and Nick's political comedy yuck-yuck hour. But that's the way it goes sometimes, you know. Yeah, I think you just answered your own question, but anyway, if anyone's got advice on how to avoid rather a complete mental-in relationship breakdown, during a house move with a small child, I will take that as well as your dollars. I do love the subtle way you slip in, like, domestic life-mental breakdowns. that you just kind of casually drop in for one line in the podcast.

Like, it's good content. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, whereas you just hide it behind those lovely shades. I'll address the shades, okay? We'll get to that later. But now, anyway, yeah, on that positive note, to Indonesia, a country I've ordered a cover on the show since, I don't know, forever. For those of you, not in this part of the world, down under. It's one of the lodestar out here.

It's like a huge place, culturally, politically, and good for us. criminally as well. So before we launch into this surprisingly little known tale of post-colonial madness and mayhem, a quick shout out to Mike Rose, some ideas and content that ended up getting worked into this episode. Mike is an Australian anthropologist out of Adelaide

Uni. He's been writing about Timor-Leste East Timor, you might know it, where I'm looking into a story now or have been for years. And he maintains a semi-fessional interest in its giant neighbour Indonesia. I also read an unbelievably, unbelievably dry academic book.

about post-war Jakarta, which I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies, which now includes the Polish guys who dumped all of our stuff into boxes in Berlin. We've only just discovered that half of it's broken. Cheers, guys. Anyway, here is Mike's description of Indonesia, which, given it's now home to around 270 million people, does a remarkable job of flying under the media radar. Quote, spanning more than 17,000 islands stretched across the equator like a broken emerald necklace, Indonesia is vast, volcanic and impossible to generalize. It is the world's largest archipelago, the fourth most populous country on earth, but maintains a surprisingly low profile.

Its jungles are thick, its mountains restless, its soil fertile and it seas rich with trade. It straddles the crossroads of Asia and Oceania, linking the Indian Ocean to the South China Sea. Indonesia is also home to the world's large Muslim population, but Islam here wears many faces. It co-exists with older beliefs, Javanese mysticism, Balinese Hinduism, Christian enclaves and animist traditions that refuse to die. Spirits inhabit trees and rivers.

Sacred mountains dominate the skyline. The supernatural and the political often share the same vocabulary. This is a country where power just doesn't flow from documents or elections. It flows from charisma, ritual, violence and myth. from the whispered name of a spirit guardian to the roar of a street mob, from the court room and the Chris. I mean, you should do that in Anthony Bourdain's voice,

like that guy on Instagram who goes to the Olive Garden stuff. Like, that's surprised it doesn't end with some pros about how Indonesian street food reflects all of this in its spices and flavors. Oh, yeah. What is Indonesian food? Oh, my God. I'm going to screw it out now.

I'm going to say curry. Yeah, there's curry, there's that gali, Norenga. I think it's very similar to other Southeast Asian street foods, but it's supposed to be quite good. Yeah, I'm going to say me goring, but isn't that the one? That's the one. Nazi gering? Yeah, I don't know if I'm pronouncing it right.

Yeah, delicious. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Naze goring. That is good stuff. If anyone's wondering what a Chris is, by the way, that is not a guy that I don't like. It's a wavy, bladed dagger. It looks something like a Skyrim game tall or something. It's extremely badass.

But yeah. Thanks, Mike. That introduction was good. Indonesia is a beast. And few places on earth are as beastly as its can. capital city, Jakarta, which is on the west side of Java, the world's most populated island. Now, Jakarta City holds 11 million people and its urban area over 32 million, which is second only to Tokyo. I think 36 or something, Tokyo's insane. In fact, Jakarta is so packed and prone to

flooding that it's sinking at a rate of up to 11 inches a year, and the Indonesian government plans to move the capital to a place called New Santara, which is on the island of Borneo by 2045, which is when we'll still be struggling to get the video element of this show, right? Which is unfair to you because it's me, isn't it? No, no, it's me. And also, people get irrationally mad about the sunglasses, dude. We get so many comments. They should focus on the fact that they're sick, right?

They're the Ray-Ban Ferrari runs. But also, if you could see what I'm looking at right now, there are all these lights on me, and I kind of, I need them, dude. And it's kind of like, otherwise, when I'm reading, I'm just staring at the screen, and it's kind of, I don't think it looks good. So, you know, if we get a teleprompter, Maybe I'll lose the glasses, but for now, you guys are going to have to deal with them.

And chances are if you're mad about my sunglasses, there's probably other things that you've got bigger problems. You should focus on those, you know? Yeah. Sorry, not sorry. I could wear my big nerdy specs as well, but I'm getting a lot of glare. I don't know. What do you think about that? You look like the owl that eats Tutsyroll pops.

You know what I'm saying? Okay. Well, I'll put them away then. But I like that all. You know. Jakarta is also... Jakarta, remember we're talking about that? It's also the site of the European colonial city of Batavia or Batavia,

founded in 1619 when the Dutch East India Company, the... Yeah, I'm very, very sorry to Dutch listeners for this. The Ferengdiger Ostindisha Compagnie or VOC... Nailed it. I probably just made it sound German, to be honest, yeah. Ruled the Dutch East Indies, which is a colony almost contiguous with modern-day Indonesia

to secure access to spices, crops and other treasures. And no, this wasn't your little benign friendly colony. It was pretty brutal, guys. The Dutch kill hundreds of thousands of locals while taking the region, and then it relies heavily on slave labor. And to do so, it carves out this strategy of divide and conquer, buying or renting loyalty from a patchwork of allies, warlords, sultans, bandits turn governors,

and of course, because you're here, gangsters. In fact, writes Robert Cribb, author of the book Gangsters and Revolutionaries, quote, Gangsters are an ancient feature of the social landscape on Java. 300 years ago, the island was still sparsely populated, and the forests which enclosed the settled regions of the river valleys offered, as in other parts of the world, a safe refuge for men beyond the laws of settled society.

The early chronicles speak thus of brigands who prayed upon travellers as they passed by forests and mountains, and early states measured their power in part by the success in suppressing these bandits. It was typically in times of war, rebellion or economic crisis when the state was under threat that Briggins conducted their activities with the greatest boldness, plundering not just individual travellers, but entire villages. High women then are a main state of the Javanese landscape, and they remain so throughout this story.

But Briggins aren't just restricted to the roads. The Dutch East Indies being a maritime colony, criminals also ply their trade at sea, and the region throngs with pirates and privateers, sometimes acting for the VOC, but more often against them, on behalf of strongmen on shore. Whether pirate or gangster, however, there is one local word with the ability to strike fear into the hearts of Dutch and Javanese alike, Yago. Yago literally means rooster or fighting cock in Javanese. but in practice it refers to somebody who can protect, intimidate and settle scores.

A man and jagos are always men, who embodies martial, i.e. bodily power, but also the mystical. As I mentioned at the top of the show, Java and Jakarta in particular is a melting pot of races, cultures and religions. By the 19th century, a distinct Jakarta ethnic group has emerged the Batawi, named for Batavia. These are Eastern Indonesian in origin, Muslim by Thalya. faith but not piously, and speaking a Malay language heavily influenced by Balinese and the Hokkien tongue common to southeastern China and Taiwan. You're as likely to find a Batawi-Yargo, therefore, protecting themselves with amulets and other charms as you'll find them praying five times daily at mosque.

Java is home to a wide array of parochial legends, therefore. One of them is called Waiyu, which means define revelation, and it refers to the way a king or strongman rules, not to the way. just by law and decree, but mystical charisma. Whatever King Charles is, basically, this is the opposite. Remember, the Dutch, East Indies are a colony of hundreds of fiefdoms, not the one Indonesia we know today. And the Yago's role in this system is as the strong man who will maintain order in the king's domain. He's the guy holding the Chris. And the Chris just isn't cool, by the way. It's forged by blacksmith priests from layers of iron, nickel, and sometimes even meteorite metal,

believe to hold spiritual energy. I like to have rather than a need to have if you're cutting someone's head off, I guess, but useful nonetheless. In case it's not already clear, Javanese culture by and large says that might quite literally is right. I mean, in fairness to the Javanese, that's pretty much every culture ever until like 50 years ago

and now it's still predominantly it, you know? Maybe in like Northern Europe, not, you know, but I can't really blame them. Sean, you racist? Fair enough, yeah. I'm not turning the screen the right way, so you can't see all the pictures on the wall. But anyway, by virtue of ruling the roost alone, the Yago actually is supernaturally legitimate, which funny story is exactly how Ivy League grads will when they sit down to write a New York Times editorial.

Above the Yago, there is also the concept of Ratu Adil, the just king. Power literally breeds justice. And yeah, like you say, this isn't limited. to Indonesia or Asia or any part of the world. I mean, the Europeans were saying this shit all the time in those good old 1930s. I think Nazi theorist Carl Schmidt said that the Fuhrer protects justice to justify literally anything that the Fuhrer did. So Europeans are well versed in this too.

Anyway, back to Jakarta in the 19th century, and the city pretty much functions through this mystical mix of kingship and the underworld. Yago step in to resolve labor disputes, arrange pilgrimage. to Mecca, run protection rackets, or as the hired muscle of Chinese or Arab traders. Yagoes run markets, monitor ports, and shake down the railways and roads. Outside the city, the Dutch operate a kind of feudalism where peasants deliver, quote, company service to the empire via landlords. While the Yago's turf is the city, the Dutch might employ one to police the countryside too. A powerful Yago will inevitably attract a loyal following. The inner

circle of whom are known as his Anakbua, or literally fruit children. As Robert Cribb points out in his book, however, these are mostly itinerant gangs, right? And the more prominent members might often ditch their yargos just to go it alone. So Jakarta's criminal underworld never actually reaches the institutionalized levels of Chinese secret societies, for example, which I think you're researching right now? Nope, not yet, but eventually. I mean, right now I'm knee-deep in East African heroin Kingpins, which is going to be a cool one. That is cool. How's that going?

It's going good. It's going great. Thanks for asking. Oh, that's good. That's nice to know. As time goes on, however, the Yagoes and their fruit children become an entrenched feature of life in Jakarta. Robbery is their staple, whether of homes or people or the sprawling villas of Dutch allied landlords. Even when captured, a Yago might escape prosecution by joining the Dutch colonial army, the K.S. N-I-L, whose Dutch words I am not going to try pronouncing. The cleverest Yagoes might therefore be able to stay in Jakarta, even if they get captured and continue their criminal exploits just in uniform,

or the less crafty of them might be banished to the poor rural hinterlands outside the city. In fact, the word Yago itself makes way around this time for the word premen, which is a bastardization of the word Freeman or Freeman in Dutch, meaning basically freelancers. the implication being that they're freelancing for the Dutch. This all means that by the beginning of the 20th century, when the first seeds of Indonesian separatism are being sown, the Dutch have ceded control of large parts of Jakarta and Java to these guys, the Promen, their men, and their magic daggers,

using them to manage false labour, extract taxes, and terrify villages into submission to the Dutch crown. And their own military forces in the region of the Dutch are heavily popular, populated with Premon 2, some of whom are happy to tow the colonial line to maintain their power bases. But many others are beginning to get a taste for freedom from the Dutch crown. In 1920, the Indonesian Communist Party or PKK is founded, and it seeks to build a base of support in Java's benighted proletariat. Jakarta isn't a particularly industrialized city, but what it does have are ports and railways. And the PKK seeks out Yagoes and Prima's Union.

who can instigate the kinds of strikes that have been crucial to the Russian Revolution a few years previous. In May 1923, members of the Union of Rail and Tramway workers in Java called the largest strike in the history of the Dutch East Indies. Dutch colonial bureaucrats blame the strike on the commies, but it's the workers themselves maligned and ignored who organise it. Men, like Hajid Dharip, born Mohammed Araf in the eastern Jakarta district of Klenda, in 1896, for example. Derip may be a working-class hero,

but he's also a criminal Nepo baby, the son of a well-known local boss named Gempur, his name means pound or attack. Yeah, I feel like most of those guys back in the day were one or the other, right, criminals or nepo babies, but the combination of the two, that's going to be a guy who does some damage, for sure. Oh, yeah, yeah, he's going to do a serious amount of damage.

He's going to, he's going to GEMPA, I guess. USAA knows dynamic duos can save the day, like superheroes and sidekicks, or auto and home insurance. With USAA, you can bundle your auto and home and save up to 10%. Tap the banner to learn more and get a quote at usaa.com slash bundle. Restrictions apply. Just two wheels, two pedals, and you.

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Let's go. Get ready for a new case. We're going to crack this case and prove for a decoranist partners of all time. New friends. You are Gary Desnake. And your last name? The snake. Dream team. New habitats.

Zootopia has a secret reptile population. You could watch the record. breaking phenomenon at home. You're clearly, working at. Zootopia 2. Now available on Disney Plus rated PG. Darrett is dispatched by his dad to Mecca, age just

three, which is nuts, man. To study, before he returns to Klender, joins the state railway, and moonlights as a gangster and a street trader. The 1923 strike is hugely successful, not only for the workers who get a wage increase in

extra benefits, but for Derek. who uses his newfound popularity to expand his criminal empire across most of eastern Jakarta. Darip's fruit children make bank robbing and extorting travelers along the main highway into Batavia, the old colonial heart of the city. And he soon formalizes them into something called the Barisan Rakat Indonesia or Indonesian People's Front, a rough alliance of mobsters, ex-railway workers and village youth that mixes brigandry with patriotism. Some more accurately you say racism. The people's

front jacked those on the highway whose skin they deemed to be too light, Chinese or Europeans, and those who they deem to be too dark like Timorese people and Amberies from the eastern corners of the colony. Those whose skin color the gang decides is just in that

Goldilocks zone must pay a small toll and shout Medicare or freedom to be allowed through. That's some solid kind of new wants racers in there, right? Do they have like a color palette thing that they would, you know, like that family guy, like, did they just like, they would be like, all right, well, you know, being racist against the dark people and the light people, like looking for that middle

ground, it's innovative. Yeah. You know? Yeah, you're stuck on the, you're stuck on the roadblock and the guys like, Mohammed, get the swatch. Get out the swatch. Yeah, you see this, man. Bang P, who's the other star of today's cold open, is another man who leads the vanguard of

gang-down politics in Jakarta. Born Imam Siafi in South Jakarta in 1918, he's orphaned age four when his father, boss of the central Senen market, we mentioned earlier, is murdered by an aspiring mobster named Ayub. Siahfi is then entrusted to a famous cleric who, as well as teaching him in the Quran, also schools him in martial arts.

This is your montage scene, Siafi learning from the old man, letting the lust for revenge burning him like incense. The boy is moved. moved on to his aunt, but he runs a pickpocket gang at Senen and he gets caught. The Dutch throw him in a kid's prison where Siaffli defeats the prison gang leader in a fight. I think his official story is it's over in seconds, but yeah, whatever. Age 16, he is sent away from Jakarta, this time to Borneo, where he studies martial arts more formally.

Then he returns to the city, running a protection racket at Senen called the Four Cent organisation, for the money traders tied to his goons. Anybody associated with Ayub either runs away or gets killed, as Siaffi avenges his father's death and returns from exile to become the market's premen. This is actually like a pretty sick origin story, you know? Yeah, it's great and it gets better. But he hates the Dutch, this guy. He hates them almost as much as he hates Ayub.

And he spins the four cents organization into something called the Ousher, Hamuda, Indonesia. I'm really good at these. The endeavor of the youth of Indonesia. Just like Hadjidurip, the gang's bread and butter is highway robbery, this time on a major intersection at Senen Market. But Siafi, now going by Pang P, wants more. In fact, whether they're in it for ideology or cold hard cash, all of Jakarta's Premon want more. The Dutch have clearly lost control of them as they face a rampant Nazi Germany back home in Europe. And by the time the US enters the Second World War, an Imperial Japan is tearing across the Pacific, Jakarta, now a city of some 600,000 people,

has become a tangled web of misaligned loyalties with a thriving and violent underworld. It's a volcano ready to blow. And on January 11, 1942, Japan blows it sky high. That day, Imperial troops land on the island of Tarrakhan, just off Borneo, and by March, With the Dutch forces in tatters, they've taken the entire East Indies, sweeping aside the colonial army and throwing thousands into concentration camps,

from which only three quarters of captives will emerge alive. At first, most Javanese people celebrate the invasion. The Dutch are gone. That's great. But it's short-lived. The Japanese rule with a characteristic iron fist, and while they throw up new flags, hold military displays and plaster propaganda posters all over town, beneath the pomp, what little order there had been under colonialism is thrown completely out the window. Chaos is king.

And who is that good news for, Danny? Apart from podcasts doing emergency shows, gangs. I was going to go with street food vendors. Probably them too, yeah, if I could. A lot of people outside. Remember what that food is. Food shortages and inflation make gang control of rice, sugar, and kerosene wildly lucrative. Haji Derrips People's Front particularly benefits from this,

blocking access to rice warehouses across their power base of clender in the east of the city. The black market under the Japanese is going ballistic, and the premen, their followings now bolstered by nationalists, communists, and other high-minded fighters, were they frithing with better weaponry than machetes and chrises. The Japanese quickly realized that, just like the Dutch, they stand almost no chance to be in Jakarta and Java, Underworld head on. So they join them, christening their own militias called Peter,

nothing to do with animal rights, which stands for Pembella Tanna Air, or Defenders of the Homeland. They have a pretty sick flag like a yassified Turkish one, and they're trained and armed by the Japanese, who despite the fact they're about to be nuked into defeat, are still a pretty formidable force. Now, crucially, the Peter is drawn from the exact same pool of street talent as the Premon and their own gang militias. It's a pretty low-rent, outfit by military standards. If the US had decided to invade Java, for example, they'd have likely routed a Peter like a Chris through butter. But the US has already lost about a thousand men in a previous campaign on the island and won't visit it again, which leaves the Peter,

these highly armed, lightly trained bands of crooks and gangsters to flourish. By 1945, which, spoiler alert is when the war ends, the Peter is reported to have almost 60,000 members. The Japanese occupation of Java might have only lasted a little over three years, but as its troops leave Java and the Dutch, supported by its allies including Great Britain, tried to restore colonial control over the East Indies, the occupation has laid the groundwork for a coming revolution. It has fused the street smarts of the underworld with military discipline and hardware and has tied it to a hatred of the Dutch.

Alliances are forged. Young nationalists, trained by Japan, begin working, with Jakarta's Premon. They might have different goals, political ideology rather than money and power, but they all share the common enemy, the Dutch. The British take control of Jakarta at first, and then the Dutch swelling the numbers of the K&L with Ambonnese troops and remobilized Dutch POWs, advance through Java towards the outskirts of the city, pushing at the edges of the fiefdoms of Premon like Hajid Dharip and Bang Pi. Most Javanese ones, nothing to do with their former colonial masters. But their proposed independent republic has no

functioning army, no police, no state infrastructure. These are pretty big deals if you want to create a nation. But what they do have are things called Laskars. Militias formed out of student groups, communists, ex-peta fighters, neighborhood gangs, religious preachers, bandits, and just teenage boys with stolen rifles. They really sound like something out of blood meridian, but they are pretty badass. And when it comes to the Perman on their side, they're carrying the power of the Almighty. I think one thing people underestimate about this time period, like post-World War II, especially in 1945 and 1950, is just like how insanely chaotic it was the world over. Like, we are talking about, you know, 100 million refugees on the move,

street battle-type civil wars between communists and far-right-wingers. Obviously, like, not as bad as during World War II, but a phenomenal level of, like, world upheaval and incredibly bloody violence. That's why I kind of, you know, I talk about that book a lot, Savage Continent, which really covers that time period just in Europe. And in the aftermath of World War II, I think specifically really 45 to 50 is what they focus on. And it just, it really drives at home. It's such an insane period of world upheaval.

You know, I think a lot of people, maybe they don't, I don't know. But my assumption is people themselves think that like World War II ends and it's like, harmony all over, you know, sailors kissing, kissing women in Times Square. But it, for America, yeah. But for like the rest of the world, it was like consistently insane, insane for years afterwards. Yeah, I mean, this is just one of those fights, right? I mean, most of Africa gets there, it's independence in what, like the late 50s, early 60s, you got India, Pakistan. It's like goes absolutely mad. Europe alone, too. I mean, Europe, especially Eastern, all those areas, you know. Yeah. It was bloody. Even Germany, you know.

Poland, Hungary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fascinating period. Yeah, this is like, this is one of those things. So if it sounds like a bit chaotic, I mean, it's mad, right? But when I say that these Perman are carrying the power of the Almighty, like, I really mean it. For these people, I mean, Hadjidurit, for example, he was a literal charmer, right? He doesn't that just have the gift of the gab.

Folks believe he can bless charms, infuse fighters with mercury to harden their bodies. Like, there are stories that he actually injected his. boys with Mercury, which, would that kill him? I'm pretty sure that would kill them, so that can't be true, and invoke unseen forces in battle. He gives his followers little bamboo spears imbued with magic power, and there are also rumours that derip trades in cannibalism, kidnapping Chinese girls, drugging them with chloroform and selling them to other premen to cut out, cut up, and distribute their hearts to underlings in order to give them more strength to fight. And this may seem like an outlandish claim, but there is a lot of

of written testimony that this kind of dark trade actually happens in Jakarta's underworld at the time. Bang P, he also joins the Lasker calls, and for a while the movement holds out, committing terrifying and unpredictable acts of violence. October and November 1945 are known as the Bersiap period, named for the warning cry of Bersiap or Get Ready, used to summon young nationalists to fight with approaching European forces. Here is Robert Kribigin, quote. Last months of 1945 were a time of robbery, looting, kidnapping and random street murders, in which Europeans disappeared, even in the heart of the city, to be found a few days later floating in one of the canals. The number killed was not as terrifying as the randomness and unpredictability

of the killings, and the fact that most Europeans could not distinguish assassins from the general Indonesian population. Indonesians were subject to counter-terror, not at the hands of unseen assassins, but from the highly visible soldiers of the Dutch Battalion X. Their activities were often not much more than brutal buffoonery. Members were ride around in trucks, singing Dutch songs and shooting wildly, and would happily beat up or shoot any Indonesian who publicly displayed Republican colors. It just sounds like Bali today, really. In December 1945, Britain decides it's had enough of this madness and launches Operation Pounce.

Britain goes all out to take Jakarta, throws up a cordon, occupies public buildings, seizes all civilian cars, arrests Indonesian police and other quote unquote extremists. Then, alongside Dutch spies, British soldiers go on a raiding spree in the suburbs, arresting 743 people. By the end of that year, Jakarta is once more in European hands. The Laskar retreats and Bangpi, and characteristically driven, fashion, rides out of the city on a white horse ahead of his followers, promising to return. And if we know one thing about this guy so far is that he doesn't muck about with his word. Haji Derip, he fades back into the scenery at this point.

He's almost 60 years old and he's got 17 kids. He teaches Quran and works as a clender market trader, while his son-in-law, Pangei, who previously been in a Dutch prison for 12 years, carries on the family trade as a permanent with a unit of 300. tufts. Pangey is actually a major player in the revolution, but this is already a huge episode and I just couldn't find room for him. Perhaps I'll do a follow-up or go into some detail when I do the second part of this show in a few weeks' time. Hadjid Drip though, he lives fast and he dies old. In 1981, in fact, at the tender age of 95. Yet again, crime pace. Bang Pi, meanwhile, has cemented his power from Sennem Market with the OPI, his boys, by fighting the Dutch,

then the Japanese and of course rival gangs. He is a true believer in independence and he calls himself a revolutionary, but he's rich too and he collects fees from hawkers, travelers and traders by the roads and rackets he commands with a vice-like grip. The post-war era of chaos just gathers pace. The lasca's gather into something called the Greater Jakarta People's Militia with the Premons' vital help and connect fighters and religious youth from the urban centre of Jakarta with the suburbs. They don't have uniforms, nor are they

pack in anything beyond bamboo, spears, machetes and antique rifles. As usual, some fight for themselves, others for the Republic and some for both. Together they form a patchwork uprising and it works, not an army, but a movement held together by belief, charisma and street power. This gang militia alliance is booting out the Dutch one district at a time. oftentimes joined by members of the Communist Party. But it's also kind of creating a shadow state, taking over markets, manning checkpoints, and deposing village leaders. It's not clean, and it's rarely noble. A struggle waged in alleys, train yards, rice fields and crossroads. It's kind of a syndicalist revolution through the back door, social transformation via the underworld.

Landlords, suspected collaborators with Dutch, rival gangsters, they're all targeted. Violence in these post-war years gets infused with the mysticism of the boys and men carrying it out. Bloodshed for them is cleansing. It's political, spiritual and deeply personal. And it's not just carried out by Indonesians. Remember, this is one of the most merrily rich places on earth. Since the early 16th century, the Maluku Islands, also known as the Moluccas, which lie at the far eastern edge of Indonesia before it hits Papua, had been known as the Spice Islands.

exclusively rich in nutmeg clothes and mace that drove those stinky non-bathing Europeans wild. Indonesia has the world's richest deposits of nickel, essential for military hardware, and it has huge reserves of copper, gold and tin. The Dutch do not want to give up that prize. And so even as Japan surrenders in August 1945, and Indonesia declares its independence and chaos rains, pen pushes in Amsterdam are like, nah, not one bit of this.

This place is called the East Indies and we still own it. The Netherlands has been pounded into dust by the war and it needs the East Indies to hang on to global power. But in the post-war years, it has needed Britain's help to subdue Dakarta and even then the Premon are on the charge. In fact, Jakarta's underworld connections have been key in keeping the revolution alive. As Premon with connections to weapons and opium traders across Asia have tooled, fed and kept fighters high and might as. The Dutch get dirty in response, launching so-called police actions across Java and neighbouring Sumatra. But these look more like full-scale invasions than cop raids, tanks, planes, paratroopers, bombings, sieges, guerrillas, guerrilla skirmishes in rice paddies and jungle valleys.

In some cases, its instigator straddle the worlds of Western East, going native like Indonesian colonel curtses. And nobody does this with quite the insanity of Raymond Restoran. A Dutch Special Forces Commando based in Sulawesi, Indonesia's second largest island, just northeast of Java. Westling is, I suppose, a typical jaded World War II soldier. Born to a Dutch antique dealer and his Greek wife in Istanbul, not typical, Westling's Catholic school tutor had remarked in the 1920s that he was a quote, mild, well-mannered, moon-faced little boy. But that doesn't last long.

Westerling fights with Australian troops in North Africa during the war where he's known simply as the Turk, reckless, with the charm of an opera villain and the ruthlessness of a butcher. The war ends, but Westerling's lust for blood doesn't, and he turns his sights on the East Indies. Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money, because behind every headline is a bottom line,

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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 episodes and a brand new story each and every single day, morning cup of murder becomes part of your routine fast. If you like your coffee hot but your bones chilled, then sit back and start your day with a morning cup of murder. Go listen to Morning Cup of Murder wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay safe. Between 1946 and 1947, Westling leads a brutal campaign to suppress pro-Republican resistance, meaning of course, the Perman.

He is swift, theatrical and terrifying, overseeing roadside trials where villages are accused, convicted and executed on the spot. Entire campongs are marched into fields and shot, not as a punishment, but as a warning. Westling, who always wears a shiny gold watch, calls this, quote, countertouch. terror. Locals call it colonial horror. Low estimates peg Westling's death count are 3,000 in just a few despicable months. Many more are tortured or disappeared. Here is Mike Rose describing Westling, quote. It wasn't just military force. It was psychological warfare, designed to crush the very idea of resistance. Survivors recall how Westling forced people to watch their neighbors die, how he made executions into public spectacle, and through it,

all, he claimed moral clarity, that he was holding the line against chaos. But Westling's role wasn't just that of a soldier. He too flirted with mysticism. He reportedly tapped into Javanese spiritual language, speaking of cleansing the land of restoring cosmic balance, echoing indigenous ideas even as he desecrated them. He wasn't just fighting a war. He was staging a myth. Now in 1949, as the Premier and their militias looked to win independence, Raymond Wesseling returns to Indonesia, only this time he's not just a servant of the Dutch crown. He's gone rogue, becoming a preman himself. Wesseling forms the Ankatan Perun Ratu Adil, the APRA, the army of the just king.

Remember that concept from earlier? Now a white Dutchman is wearing it proudly on his sleeve to murder Indonesians, a messianic figure sent from heaven to restore order from chaos. Fortunately for Westling, the legend just happens to say that this king will be of Turkish descent, and Westling plays it up as the savior of Indonesia. His army are complete misfits, Dutch and Japanese army deserters, villagers paid in rice or salted fish, or Muslim extremists. By January 1950, though, there are 10,000 of them, and they march into the Javanese city of Bandung, 100 miles southeast of Jakarta, to try to shatter the new republic before it can take root.

Bandung in the bag, Westerling then heads to Jakarta, but he's more than matched by the city's underworld kings who destroy his army and he flees north to Singapore, then British colony, which arrests Westerling for illegal entry. This guy has blurred the lines between gangster, general and cult leader, and nobody's quite short to do with him. After a couple of years of confusion, i.e. Westerling getting shunted around Europe by friendly governments, he winds up in the Netherlands where he puts up in the Netherlands, where he puts up. publishes a sensational memoir, has a briefly critically unaclaimed career as a literal opera singer, and he becomes something of a cult hero, or menace, depending on your views, until his death in 1987, aged 68. Love the Dutch, just welcoming him back, man. Totally, totally makes sense. Yeah. And didn't we, I think, like, in the last Maradonna episode, we also had a guy from the Camor who, like, went to prison and ended up being an opera singer. So, yeah, I don't know.

Something in the water in those stages, I don't know. Anyway, Westling may have lost his bid to retake the East Indies. And at the end of 1949, Amsterdam officially hands over sovereignty to the Republic of the United States of Indonesia. But Westling and the Premier who kicked him out of Jakarta, they leave behind a violent gangland legacy. The Turk may not have been the Messiah after all, but at this point, millions of Indonesians truly believe the idea

that a single chosen man, however violent or merciless, may rule from the streets to the summit of Indonesian politics. Indonesia's first president, Sukarno, takes on this mantle. He's an intellectual who can quote the Quran, Marx or Rig Veda. He's fiercely intelligent, flamboyant, known for his wit and sharp wardrobe, and he pairs his tailored suits with a sort of Indonesian fez called Apeche. And he, just as Hajid Dharip and Raymond Westling, stirs the legend of the just king.

As regional rebellions and religious insurgencies royal across Indonesia, he brands an ideology called guided democracy. Basically, people vote, nears the appearance of suffrage, but it masks an almost centralised autocratic rule by Sukarno, martial law, and a reduction in civil liberties. Bear with me, because we're going to step into Cold War espionage and intrigue, but, you know, we're going to get back to gangsters before long.

Sukarno blends the four main factions in Indonesia, politics, which are secular nationalism, Islamism, communism and the army, into a cocktail called Nassaucom, literally nationalism, religion and communism. This includes many of the Perman who have been instrumental in taking the country back from the Dutch, including Ban P, the old Senen strongman, him Tuchano appoints the Jakarta's House of Representatives. He gives almost no power to the communist, deliberately so. But with this being the Cold War, even the width of red power is enough to get tongues wagging in Washington and Langley. So the CIA, Indonesia looks like domino number one, a Muslim majority nation, rich in oil and minerals,

led by a president who fraternizes with Mao and Chris Jev. U.S. spy chiefs don't fear that Sukarno is a Marxist himself, but with Indonesia's communist gaining popularity, they decide to act. So in 1957, the CIA begins funneling weapons, money, and American pilots to take anti-Sucano rebel army officers in Sumatra and Siloese, aiming to encircle Java and Jakarta and fracture Indonesia's guided democracy. This ruse actually fails when a CIA pilot shot down carrying US documents in his flight suit, which is obviously a bit of a clown show, and Sukano leaps on the incident to tighten his grip on Indonesia even harder. But the agency doesn't give up there. In the early 1960s, it concocts one of the wildest spy plots the world has ever seen, attempting

to exploit Sukarno's reputation as a womanizer. Working with contacts in Los Angeles, including ex-Hollywood set builders and adult film technicians, CIA Spooks, produce a fake pornographic movie starring a Sukarno look-a-like wearing a rubber mask. It's working title, Happy Days. Thankfully for everyone involved, this film never sees the light of day. Even more bizarrely, the Soviets, who hate Sukarno for his own reasons, try their own sexual play, secretly filming Sikano during an encounter with multiple aeroflot stewardesses. But this and let's be honest, one of the boss's moves at the entire Cold War, Sukarno lasts the whole thing off.

He even asked for the Soviets for the tape so he can screen it for his friends. The guy is less cancable than Joe Rogan 50 cent combined. He is a bulletproof player. Wait, so hold on. The US tries to sabotage him with fake porno, but doesn't go through it in the end. So the Soviets secretly film a real porno with him to use his blackmail. And instead, he's just like, fuck it. Air that stuff, dude.

I look good. That's an incredible Cold War stuff happening here. That is a legendary move. Yeah, it's so good. It's the movie that Argo could have been. But while Sikano has got the greatest spies in Moscow and D.C. Well under wraps, his young nation is bursting at the seams. The army is growing restless.

the communists are organising, and neighbouring states are chipping away at Indonesia's territory. And nowhere would this volatility play out more dramatically than in the underworld of Jakarta, just as it had done before the Japanese landed, and just as it had done when Raymond Westling had launched his failed attempt to become a colonial kingpin. Sukarno may be the just king of Indonesian politics, but on the streets of his biggest city, he's just another premon. Here's the thing about post-war post-independence Jakarta. It's no less chaotic and criminal than the Jakarta that went before it.

In fact, with so many groups vying for control of the city, from Cold War spies to communist agitators, smugglers, diplomats, Amprem and drifting between politics and crime, that Jakarta is a separate universe of madness, with its own twisted underworld logic. Black markets still thrive, with gang leaders growing in influence alongside them. Jakarta's criminal landscape changes shape as politicians and army officers begin recruiting street thugs to harass unions, disrupt government meetings, and generally assert their presence without actually deploying the military.

It would have been wild to be there covering that, man. Like, definitely sucked for them. But there's definitely a small party that's like, like covering this being on the ground there in that sort of era is that chaos. I don't know. Maybe it's just me. Yeah. I'd like to be there, too. The premen have become more than mere street tufts. They're now a vital part of a kind of internal proxy war,

several states within the Indonesian state. Some are just the rebranded gang-led rebels who'd helped liberate the city from the Dutch. Others are new, like the Barrasanne Banking or Buffalo Front, or the Pomuda Patriotic, the patriotic youth. Many claim to defend the Republic. Some even say they're defending Sukarno himself, but mostly what they're after is territory, influence and the right to operate without interference.

These groups patrol neighborhoods, break up strikes, run protection rackets and stage political rallies. They wear uniforms, carry flags and swear loyalty to abstract political ideals. But beneath the front are power struggles, tribal loyalties and the race for cash. Many are armed and all of them operate in a grey zone between state and crime. They're too political to be dismissed as mere gangs, but they're too violent and unpredictable to be trusted as organs of the state. Interestingly, these gangsters are inhibited from growing really big because amateur crime in this post-war period is so common that the scope for organised crime is actually limited. Drugs might be abundant, but none have the market opportunities for big-time narcos. Alcohol and marijuana, they're legal.

And the Republic controls access to opium, as do neighbouring. states. You can topple a gangster, but you cannot topple the state. Even cocoa, which grows naturally in West Java, is useless. Most locals barely know it exists, and nobody has the expertise to turn it into cocaine. The premen at this point are mostly on Sukarno's side. It's the army that's his biggest danger. Now, it is led by a quiet, calculated general named Suharto, who has his own designs on the just king's throne. Suharto is the opposite, although not alphabetically, of Sukarno. Born in a poor Javanese village in 1921, he has risen through the military's ranks with discipline, silence and a knack for survival.

Where Sukarno might speak in poetry and vision, Suharto speaks in orders or not at all. As the premon take control of Jakarta and Indonesia slips into chaos, Suharto schemes behind the scenes, quietly plotting his route to power. The CIA is watching too, still keen to knit what it sees as a growing communist threat in the bud. Meanwhile, the streets of Jakarta are filling with young men looking for a fight,

ready to expand their criminal enterprises into true political power. The revolution isn't over, it's about to devour itself. And in the early hours of October 1, 1965, something finally breaks. A group of mid-ranking army officers, calling them the Geracan or Jerican 30 September or 30th September movement

rolls through Jakarta in military trucks. Their stated mission is to preempt a right-wing coup and save President Sukarno from a secretive, quote, Council of Generals that they claim is planning to seize power. But their operation is violent, confused and catastrophic. Six of Indonesia's highest-ranking generals are kidnapped from their homes. One is shot dead in front of his wife. Another escapes by climbing over a garden wall, but his young daughter is gunned down, and his aid is taken and later executed.

The others are dragged, half-dressed from their homes and driven to Lubang Buaya, the crocodile hole, are clearing near a military training site on Jakarta's outskirts. There, generals are tortured and murdered. Some are shot, their bodies dumped in a disused well. Autopsies will describe blunt false trolle. and gunshot wounds. But the army circulates far wild tales, have gouged out eyeballs, fingers removed,

genitals mutilated. No matter that there's no evidence for this version of events, the story takes hold. The conspirators, still in their uniforms, take over national radio and declare a revolutionary council. They claim to be defending the president, and remarkably Sukarno is still alive and technically in command of them. But the conspirators have made a faithful,

mistake. They haven't touched Suharto, whose rivals they've just murdered, even though they could have easily done so, which if you're going to point the finger at who's behind this, maybe the guy who they most conspicuously didn't kill. Anyway, the quiet, disciplined general, he just looks on, and then he steps in. By midday on October 1st, he has mobilised his men. Tanks and troops flood into central Jakarta. By nightfall, Suharto claims he's put down the movement and he blames it on Indonesia's Communist Party. So, yeah, wildly reported as a false flag there, guys. In the following days, Suharto's military arrests swaves of leftists. Communist party members, trade unionists, students, artists, they're branded enemies of the state and a purge begins.

But the bloodshed isn't just carried out by men in uniform. Gangs, youth organizations and militias join in. Suharto once more capital. on that blurred line between crime and politics. Premon used the violence to settle old street scores. The 30th September movement hasn't just failed to take Indonesia. It has sparked a period of bloodletting previously unseen on the streets of the city. By early 1966, between 50,000 and a million people will be dead, mostly in Jakarta and Java, but spreading to Sumatra, Bali and far further flung.

The army encourages civilians, especially Islamic and anti-communist youth groups, to do the killing for them. The army provides lists and rounds up its enemies. They let the gangs and goons do the rest. The most prominent among these groups is something called the Pemuda Pancasilla, Pankasilla youth, founded in 1959 and named after a national philosophy that I won't get into here because we would actually be here all day. These guys, Perman, and their street hoods, are initially founded to school. quash trade unions, but after the coup attempt, they're given free reign to round up and kill alleged communists with knives, machetes, clubs, and toss the bodies into fields, mass graves and rivers that in some cases run completely red with blood. As pre-war Perman had done, the Pancasilla

youth wear amulets to protect themselves, and they visit shamans before setting out to kill. The dead are often refused funeral rights to prevent their bodies from rising and to ensure they're raised altogether. These young men don't just believe they're ridding Indonesia of a communist menace. They're a continuation of the gangster's belief in the just king, turning cosmic chaos into order. General Suharto is yet another Jakarta power monger who has realized that the best way to rule Indonesia is to instrumentalize rather than wipe out. It's violent, deeply superstitious underworld. Ambition comes in all shapes and sizes. At First Citizens Bank, we roll with your goals because we're built for what you're building.

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between executioner and a patriot, is never quite clear. The old Yagoes, village tufts, street enforcers, wartime thugs have finally arrived at the palace gates, and Suharto welcomes them inside. Some become government ministers, others, community leaders. They swap teas for batic shirts, shake hands of generals, and smile for publicity shots as the heroes who prevented Indonesia from falling into communist hands.

Some, of course, have picked the wrong side in this fight. Take Bang P. He's Sukarno's Special Minister of Security when Suharto sees his power. The General's men arrest P in March 1966, and he'll spend almost a decade behind bars. Suharto's followers call this madness. stability. But as usual, beneath the shiny finer is the same old story. Protection money, purges, blood loyalty. Suharto's new order will last more than three decades and it's hailed as a miracle

of development, but it's also a machine of oppression, fear, censorship and spectacular corruption. Foreign investors love this so-called Jakarta method. Order and justice seem to have been restored. but now a cabinet of thieves is in charge of Indonesia and over the next few decades a gangster state will emerge in which violence rules in the Pancasilla youth

will trade in their machetes for Mercedes Benzes damn dude and there is the story of Indonesia and the gangsters a crazy one right there if I could drop this mic and not lose $400 I would do it

well done everyone thanks for tuning in hopefully you made it this far Patreon.com slash the Underworld Podcast. That is a crazy tale. And thanks to who was the guy who helped you with the research. Oh, Mike Rose. Yeah. Mike Rose. Yeah. Thanks so much for contributing. This is a wild one.

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