← The Underworld Podcast
The Underworld Podcast
Daniel Kinahan's Iran Oil Games, The King of the South & Trump's War on Narcos: Stashhouse!
00:58:43
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Have you ever wondered what it's like to witness a murder?
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Forrest grabbed the knife and then just stabbed Johnny in one motion.
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Or how it feels to be shot.
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I was immediately hit by a barrage of bullets.
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Or how you would react if your
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spouse hired someone to kill you and it was to put me in a grave with a bullet wound on my head.
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These are the stories you'll hear on the podcast called what Was that Like? True Stories told by the actual person who went through it. You'll hear from a stalking victim. Came back upstairs and when I came back and turned the corner into my room, I saw him standing there. You'll hear from a man who was kidnapped and tortured.
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I would do anything, say anything, to simply get away.
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And you'll hear actual 911 calls.
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B
Take a deep breath. Oh my God. Take a deep breath. Oh my God. Oh my God.
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Real people in unreal situations Search for what was that like on any podcast app or@whatwosthatlike.com think about some of the cases that defined true crime in America. Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer.
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The kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart.
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The Karen Retrial Some crime cases are so shocking, they don't just make headlines, they forever change a country. I'm Katie Ring, host of America's Most Infamous Crimes. Each week I take on one of the most notorious criminal cases, whether it's unfolding now or etched into American history, revealing not just what happened, but how it forever changed our society. Serial killers who terrorized cities, unsolved mysteries that kept detectives up at night, and investigations that changed the way we think about justice. Each case unfolds across multiple episodes released every Tuesday through Thursday, from the first
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sign that something was wrong to the moment the truth came out or didn't.
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These are the stories behind the headlines. Listen to and follow America's Most infamous crimes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. Welcome back to the Underworld podcast, where every week two journalists who have spent their careers traveling all over the world report on this kind of stuff. Bring you our fantastic listeners, a new story of international organized crime from past, present and future, exploring the wacky world of street gangs, mafias and cartels. And it's brought to you by me, myself, Danny Gold, and my co Sean Williams, who who bartenders in his new home of Buenos Aires, have already formed WhatsApp groups to warn each other about. And I'm hearing reports that you already have a nickname across the city and it is El Gringo Sin Pantalones. Is that Is that accurate? Do you think that's true?
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B
I don't know. I don't speak Spanish. I don't understand.
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A
You know, I'm, I'm. I'm mostly kidding. In situations I've been in with Sean in bars, he has kept his pants on like 95% of the time. So that would not be.
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B
Yeah, it's just that one time.
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A
But yeah, you just published a blockbuster article, didn't you? In some publication that I've never heard of, but just came out.
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B
Thanks for the huge compliment. Yeah, it's cool.
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A
We want to promote them, dude. I want them to get attention. They're new. Yeah, yeah.
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B
You know, it's the first issue. It's good stuff. It's called Now Voyager magazine. It's a new print. It's like actual real life magazine. Another couple to come in next fortnight. I mean, like stories from me that are more kind of in the podcast wheelhouse. We're definitely going to do one of them anyway, the one that I was out in Japan for as a show. But yeah, journalism, mate. It's good. It's good stuff.
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A
What's the article about? Dude, you gotta. You gotta tell us.
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B
Oh, right, yeah, the article that I just released. It's about the fight over this like natural wonder in New Zealand that was once thought of as the eighth wonder of the world. And it was the first biotourism site. People would come over on like steamships from Los Angeles just to see this giant kind of like center block, kind of like a giant geyser cascading thing. It's pretty amazing. And then it got blown up by a volcano and everyone thought it was destroyed forever, but it wasn't and they rediscovered it. But that was only the start of the drama. Do you like that was that I
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A
got to know more, but yeah, I don't want to. I feel bad now. Voyager sounds great. I was just saying it's a new magazine, so I hadn't heard of it until you published.
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B
He's backtracking.
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A
I think it's awesome that they're publishing you and other long form writers and I think it's great. I just want to be very, very clear on that. It wasn't melt. It meant as like a derogatory thing. Anyway, as always. Patreon.com Underworld podcast to support us or for bonus episodes or you can sign up right here on Spotify or itunes underworldpod.com for merch, some good T shirts for your spring fashion and email us tips the underworld podcastmail.com this week we are bringing you another stash test episode. That's where we kind of go through some of the bigger crime stories from the past month or two to kind of give you guys the rundown. We're going to try to do one of these every other month or so for the main feed because they seem. We feel like they've gotten pretty popular. But let us know, do you like these or do you hate them? Would you rather it be normal episodes?
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B
Yeah, do you like these episodes or do you hate them? Not if you. If you hate us or not, don't let us know.
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A
They let us know anyway.
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B
No, no. Yeah, I mean, do let us know if you like these ones. But I feel like we've hit some kind of golden era for organized crime stories. It feels like every single day there's another guy getting raided or something in the news that's like right in our. I'm gonna say wheelhouse again, because I can't think of another word. Yeah, it's wheelhouse stuff. If there's more stuff you want to know about, like the stuff that we talk about on the stash house episodes, then just let us know because we can make them into bigger shows, profiles, stuff like that. Yeah, email us, let us know.
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A
So first up for me, big news out of Bolivia, where friend of the pod major narco trafficker and semi professional footballer Sebastian Marcet has been bagged by Bolivian special forces and, and immediately transferred to the US after being on the run for years and talking a lot of smack in the media. So much smack that we actually thought Sean might have a chance of going to hang out with him in his Bolivian hideout once he moved to South America in the past month. But of course, like all good things, it just didn't. It just couldn't happen because he got arrested right away. And we're bummed. Well, I mean, we're bummed that Sean can't interview him. What's especially interesting about this is not that the DEA was involved as they seem to basically be going door to door in Latin America right now and taking out narcos left and right, but that Marcet's cocaine was not going to the U.S. right. He was in fact a major cocaine broker focused on Europe. I think he was responsible for something like 16 tons. That's what's alleged. I don't even think he sent any stuff to the US or at least if he did, it was a minor, minor amount. So, you know, he's charged with. What he's charged with in the US is money laundering. And we always talk about how, you know, if you're a narco boss, cartel leader, you want to avoid shipping stuff to the US Cuz that puts you on a ra, like on their radar, and they, you know, go after people and get things done. Uh, but that apparently doesn't matter anymore. Even if you're just using US Banks to launder money, which is what he's accused of, they will still go after you. But let's back up for a second here. We did an episode on him in 2024, I think it was titled like the Narco Soccer Player or something like that, because he has a habit of buying professional teams and. And putting himself on the team.
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B
Yeah.
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And playing for them, which I think is exactly what you should do if you're fabulously wealthy. But what's interesting and shows how many episodes we've done is that when the news first broke of him being captured, I like Ping Sean right away. And I was like, let's add this to Stache House. Assuming that he would do it because he had written the episode. It turns out I. I had written the episode and my brain is effectively just riddled with holes. It was two years ago. Completely forgot somehow. Still one of the smartest podcasters out there, which again, not showing much. It just shows you how low the bar is in this profession. Now, a little background on Marcet. Right. He really revolutionized a new drug route in South America, one that, like we said, even caught the attention of the Americans. He's been instrumental in what they call the southern route, moving tons and tons of coke south from Bolivia into Paraguay and Uruguay and then onto Europe. There's a massive bust in Germany that nets 5 tons, which is a record in 2019. And then three busts in Holland and Belgium net another 17 tons. All this said to be the work of Marset.
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Yeah. So more than the 16 ton side, but not. It's not like, you know, giant cartel levels, but in huge single shipments. So you'd assume he's got tons of folks paid off along the way. That's how he's getting this done.
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Yeah, I don't know why they. They said all the reports of him getting arrested say he was accused of shipping 16 tons. Maybe they don't have. Maybe like those. The. The 3 bus in Holland and Belgium. Maybe they don't have the evidence for that. That's necessary to charge him with. That would be my assumption. Something along those lines.
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You thought he would have f. He would have been one of those ones that tumbles out of The Encro chat stuff. Right. Because that's how they bunch of these guys. But maybe he was even more careful than that. Although he posts.
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A
Yeah, he's a poster all right. But the Ankro chats were more pre2020, weren't they? Isn't that when a lot of them. And they're only coming out.
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B
That's true, yeah. 2019, 2020.
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I mean he only started going in 2019. 2020. But again, he's not busted by the Europeans. Right. This is the Americans and the Bolivians. So maybe he was in the encore chats in Europe, but they just couldn't get the job done. He's originally from Uruguay. He gets popped for some minor trafficking in like 2013, serves a prison sentence for five years and when he gets out, he gets right back to work. He had really charmed a lot of folks in prison, made some great connections. He links up with two of the most like the biggest organized crime groups in the world. Zill's PCC or first command of the capital and the Endrangheta of Calabria. And he becomes a broker. Right. He's not like, like a Mexican narco or Colombian one where he's in charge of growing the stuff and doing all this stuff himself. He's the guy who arranges deals. In 2019 he moves to Paraguay and he founds basically the first Uruguayan cartel ever. He's the first Uruguayan narco lord and he calls it the first Uruguayan cartel. That's. That's the name. He also starts referring to himself as the king of the south.
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Yeah. Speaking of kings of the south, I am going to be traveling through the region. Uruguay is just across the river. I'm heading to Peru and Bolivia if anyone's got any tips. I'm going to be spending a lot of time looking into organized crime stuff for the show while I'm away.
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Yeah, I think it's like looking in, huh. Looking into the organized crime stuff, aren't you?
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B
What are you trying to.
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A
Nothing.
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B
My nose just about. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to be in Peru, in Bolivia, checking out some stuff and if anyone's got any recce for stories that they would like to get in touch with, please do email the show. Yeah, that's that. That's it. There's nothing more to it than that.
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A
Yeah, for sure.
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B
Despite. Despite your sort of insinuations, which I don't appreciate.
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I wasn't. You're a professional journalist who writes long form magazine articles and I think that, you know, whatever you want to expense to these companies while you're traveling those countries is your business as long as you can come up with a receipt. You know what I'm saying?
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That's spoken like a true vice veteran. Yeah.
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A
In 2021, Marcet's actually arrested in Dubai on a fake Uruguayan passport. But he's able to like maneuver his way out of prison, gets a new passport issued and just kind of escapes. And then in 2022, I guess not escapes, they let him go, but he maneuvers it. And then in 2022, he really makes a splash when he has a Paraguayan prosecutor killed while he's on vacation in col. He was on his, his honeymoon. The. The prosecutor. And that's alleged, of course.
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Yes. Yeah.
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He's a master at moving not only large amounts of yay around, but also money laundering, setting up front companies, and he's sharp and possesses the natural charm to win over everyone from those two criminal groups I mentioned that are massive to high ranking politicians. And he just like, he's a slick operator. Right. He always seems to be one step ahead or seemed to be one step ahead of law enforcement, traveled under numerous aliases, fake documents, all that. Here's how Inside Crime described him. A year ago or 2023, quote, Uruguay's most prolific drug trafficker, Sebastian Marcet, has strung together an intercontinental network of associates implicated in cocaine trafficking, money laundering and high profile assassinations, all while escaping the clutches of authorities in Dubai, Paraguay and Bolivia. His major flaw though was that he loved soccer and he loved playing it. So much so that he would buy teams and put himself on the field. And, and this, of course, you know, he gets sort of spotted and it attracts the attention of the authorities. And another thing he loved to do besides that was also talk a lot of trash to the media.
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B
He's pretty big on Instagram, right. That's where he was doing a lot of his stuff. So we can finally sort of tut and tap the sign at him.
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A
Yeah, definitely.
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He was big poster. Yeah.
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Don't Instagram your crime stuff. I don't know. He was posting so much on Instagram or having other people post for him. Like I don't know if he had his own account, but he was definitely a talk a lot of trash in the media guy. After the Bolivians did a raid, a massive raid to try to arrest him In August of 20, he gets away and a Bolivian lawyer, this is what it was, with a big social media file, and gets sent a video from our set where he says the director of the anti Narcotics police in Bolivia tipped him off ahead of the raid, and he thanks him, which is kind of a dickhead move if he did, and if he didn't, it's very well played. He sends more videos and voice notes, taunts the police, tells them he's too smart for them, and jokes that he's far away. Then later that November, a Uruguayan broadcast journalist takes two helicopter rides to meet him at a mansion in the middle of nowhere. All of this is arranged by his lawyer, which, I don't know, man. Doesn't seem like a good lawyer if you're doing that here. He does like, a 60 Minutes type interview with the journalist, which is filmed. You know, he's like a guy tatted up to his neck. He's kind of smiling. He has a Louis Vuitton sweater on and a big gold watch, big diamond earrings. It's got a pretty sick fade, too, which you don't expect from someone on the run. He's smiling the whole time. This is a very. It's a very wild move by him, taunting these people.
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B
Yeah. How much is Uruguayan media paying for stories? I think I need to get onto that. They're sending two helicopters for a story, but he probably said that. I wonder about the fades. Yeah, helicopter. I've never even been in a helicopter. Have you?
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A
I have not. And I was. I was on Colorado this past week, and we were talking to some folks who were doing some helicopter skiing. I haven't. I've been in a lot of, like, small prop planes, but never a helicopter.
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B
Yeah, I kind of am terrified of them because they do crash quite a lot. I always want to remember these fades, though. Like, how are some of the slickest haircuts getting done on guys serving life in prison or on the run? Like, are we. I don't know, we send in our best Turkish barbers to supermaxes to shave the heads of gangland killers or what? Like, what's going on there?
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A
Turkish barber is not a thing in. In America. It's Dominicans.
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B
Oh.
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A
And Bukharians. Bukharians run the barbershops in New York. Man, they're the best. The best.
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B
Oh, really? And now, wait, that's like Central Asia, right?
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A
Uzbek Jews. Yeah, Bukharians. But now there's a whole contingency of. Of regular Uzbeks that are starting barbershops here. And they're also really talented about. At cutting hair. You know, it's very. I always love that dynamic of, like. Of different immigrant groups and the jobs that they get sort of started in and but yeah, Bukhari and Barbers, dude, the best. Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh yeah, Sebastian. There was something else I was gonna say about him and. And the journalist thing. Oh, yeah, it's definitely. He's paying for the helicopter rides for sure. There's no way the media is paying for that, dude.
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B
Yeah, I did not think of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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A
So he's quiet for a bit. And then In October of 2025, he records a video with a bunch of armed PCC guys. That's the super powerful British Brazilian gang threatening a former partner he said was trying to take over his drug routes. Should also mention that in May of that year, the U.S. state Department charges him with laundering money in U.S. banks and puts him on a most wanted list and offers 2 million for his capture. And then of course, just this month, I think, what, a week ago in March, the Bolivian special forces, with help from the feds, do a massive raid on his house in the rich part of Bolivia's capital city. I mean, he must have really thought he was untouchable, which is a. Even with the US charge, which again, if the US charges you, like, go. Go on the run, you know, especially like Latin America. I feel like you think you can bribe your way out, but just what a reversal, you know, 34 years old, top of the world. Think you've got law enforcement and politicians in the country in the bag, right? Only to get scooped and extradited on the same day pretty much to head to the us. Probably should have wised up after Bolivia elected a new government, right?
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B
Yeah, that's a kind of big part of this story, which I'm going to talk about in this show as well. But I should add, like, Bolivia has three capital cities. It's La Paz.
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A
Did not know this.
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B
Sucre and Santa Cruz. And Marset was found in the latter. Right. Santa Cruz della Sierra. And that's like the biggest of all of them, actually. If you go back to our. Remember the Klaus Barbie episode where he's hooking up with the campesinos. That's where they all used to hang out in Santa Cruz. And he's just like hanging out in a village. Well, not Fast Barbie anymore. He's long gone. But Sebastian Marcet was just hiding out in the middle of town in a big villa among all of these guys. So that stuff about him getting tipped off by the feds in 2023, I mean, you know, I believe it.
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A
The Bolivians. The Bolivians.
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B
The Bolivians wasn't.
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A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, for sure. I'm sure he was. I'm sure he had, he had people on, on, on payroll. La Paz is supposed to be pretty gnarly, right?
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B
Yeah, I've heard pretty, I mean, cool stuff. I'm gonna go and see a Lucha libre show. This. It's gonna be quite kind of cool that. Actually, let's not, let's. Maybe we'll keep that bit in. Maybe not, depending on what I tell my partner. But yeah, I'm working the whole time now. I'm not enjoying myself. Of course.
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A
Yeah, of course. But yeah, this is a major signifier of Bolivia kind of returning to cooperation with US authorities after 20 years of a left wing government that wanted kind of nothing to do with them. And this is, I mean the government now isn't, I believe Bolivian's government is center. Right, right. It's not like.
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B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
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A
And it really seems like the US administration now is doing. And you're going to talk about this a bit like a full court press on drug traffickers at the moment. You've got men show that thing in Brazil, Ecuador. It's definitely a new era. Will it make a difference in the drug trade is the big question. And will lead to anything more than a bunch of heavy hitters getting locked up for life and Sean's lad weekends getting a bit more expensive. What do you, what do you got for me, Big Willy? What's, what's next on tap?
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B
Yeah, I think I'm going to stick with sin pantalones over there. That is, that is, that is not one of my favorite favorite ones. I don't know if we're gonna mention the Brazil one in today's show. So I just kind of like, I think that there was a raid last week again, it's like the day after Marset or something where cops in Rio went into a favela and killed one of the, one of the Red Commands top guys. That is like a developing story. So I don't know whether, I didn't know whether we should chuck it in now where there's loads of bad information about it. But I think we should, we should do something about how the PCC especially is like taking over Latin American cocaine at the moment because they really are, they're going straight to the source of the Andes. They're getting off the producers, they're kind of muscling out a lot of the Mexicans in that region. So yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna do something about that further down the line.
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A
But we did a We did a big one on them. I did, I think. Yeah, two years ago.
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B
Yeah, a couple years ago. Yeah. Yeah.
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A
But I guess if things have changed.
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B
They're getting huge. They're massive. Yeah, yeah.
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A
I mean, they were huge then. So it sounds like they're only getting bigger.
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B
Yeah, yeah, for sure. But my story, it's gonna stick in Latin America. But it's about Ecuador. Well, kind of. I mean, next week it could be about Paraguay. I mean, a couple of weeks it will be about Paraguay because I'm going to go there. Could be Argentina or Bolivia or any of the 17 nations that have signed up to this. Shield of the Americas. Donald Trump's the America's counter cartel coalition. God, that's a hat. That's a mouthful. That was announced a fortnight ago in southern Florida and it's going to be led by former Homeland Security chief Kristi Noem.
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A
Yeah, there you go. It's like I said, going after him.
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B
Yeah, yeah. This is Trump saying this, right? So, quote, just as we formed a coalition to eradicate. Eradicate isis, we now need a coalition to eradicate the cartels. The current. The courage and resolve of the great leaders here will make our nation safer, stronger and richer. And so before I get to Ecuador, it's like really important to note that this coalition is actually not in its infancy, like US proposition. It was actually the result of lobbying by Latin American governments of like this center. Right. Some more further on the right. Like Javier Milei here in Buenos Aires with Santiago Pena in Paraguay, Jose Antonio Cast in Chile, or Naive Bukele in El Salvador, of course.
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A
So I didn't actually know that. I wasn't paying too much attention. I thought it was the Trump administration deciding to go in hard. But I assume Mexico wasn't involved in this. Right. I can't see Shine Bound being like, come in and. Yeah, so the mental thing is like, separate from this.
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B
Yeah. I think it starts with like these governments, especially in the Southern cone, which is these southern nations in Latin America coming together and being like, right, we need to like cleave closer to the US and we're fed up, up of all these cartels running around. So they come to the States, which then probably reaches back out to other countries in the region. And now they've got, I think, 17 on board. But yeah, Mexico is not one of them. And the Mento is kind of the Mento situation. I think we spoke about it in that show a couple weeks back. But it's. That has its own kind of political dynamics wrapped around it. Which are pretty unique to Mexico. And it's not the same situation with Shine Balance at the moment compared to other leaders. But, but yeah, I mean, like when it comes to this coalition, I think all of these leaders want a few things, right? There's a lot, there's a few different layers to it. Firstly, they're all a sharp detour from status quo politics in their country. I mean, you just spoke about the Bolivia situation as well. And a lot of their platform, in Bukele's case, pretty much all of it. Right. Is based on this kind of law and order, similar to like old school Republicanism in the us Right. So they want to like smash the cartels, number one, or at least be seen to be doing so. And they want an ally with America that's threatening them basically with all kinds of crippling sanctions unless they do what they're told. And then also they want to get US cash for their policies. So this is kind of an important part of it. Right. So milei got a $20 billion bailout last year and he's getting tons from China too. So he's playing a pretty canny game, to be honest.
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A
So that bailout is actually, it was 20 billion from the IMF, which is what Argentia does. They just get money from the imf. But he did the, like the, the old credit transfer, credit card debt transfer thing. So there was an option of getting 20 billion from the U.S. i believe it was some sort of credit currency thing before the midterm elections. But he took, so he took 2.5 billion, I think, from the US in that regard to pay off the IMF. But then I think he's since paid that 2.5 billion off. I don't know if the line of credit is still being sent in for anything, but yeah, that was just, you know, run of the mill Argentinian IMF bailout money, which is probably somewhere in the, I don't know, trillion dollars.
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B
Sounds like your Couchy account at the moment then. Well, getting to pay off that. Yeah, I mean this is, this is a bit too inside baseball that politics. Right. But basically, given how the Trump administration is now going hard against the cartels, whether it's boats in the Caribbean or Mencho or Marset or whoever. Right. Beating the cartels is something that these governments can easily get behind and they know it's going to play well with the White House. So I'm in Paraguay next week. They might be the most interesting example out of all of these. You got this place called Ciudad del Este City of the east, which is city of around half a million people in the so called triple frontier. And that is where Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil meet. If you've been to Iguazu Falls, you've been to this region, you've got open organized crime thriving in this place for decades, right? There are caravans of drugs and armed traffickers rolling through. They're about as like hidden as a football team's open top bus parade, giant shopping malls, laundering money for Hezbollah, Chinese gangsters building illegal casinos and scam centers for the ccp. So you can pretty much understand why neighboring countries in the US might be getting a bit pissed off with the state of affairs. And then you've got President Santiago Pena, who Donald Trump once said was so good looking he wanted to kiss him. I think he has allowed the US to enact a thing called a Status of Forces Agreement, or sofa, which puts American boots on the ground in Paraguay and then lets them be immune from prosecution by Paraguayan law, similar to diplomatic immunity.
- [24:08]
A
Basically, Trump talking about how good looking politicians, like especially male politicians are is pretty. I mean, love Merriam, it's, it's hilarious. But I think, you know, I looked up that guy after I heard, I saw you were going to say this and he's got like a Christian Cristiano Ronaldo thing going, but not really my type, to be honest with you. Who is out of, out of politicians right now?
- [24:28]
B
Yeah, go on then.
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A
That's a good question. Are we talking world leaders, US Leaders or.
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B
Oh, I mean, I'm happy to get whatever comes out your mouth next, to be honest. So, you know, I can't think of
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A
anything off the top of my head. But I will interrupt you when, when, when, when someone, you know, steps out to me, when someone stands out, when
- [24:46]
B
I figure it out, okay, I won't go into my Giorgio Maloney obsession, but yeah, let's move on. Anyway, in Paraguay, I think after Trump said that, he was like, oh, anyway, I like women. He likes women. Yeah, women love a guy like this. It's really funny. Opposition leaders in Paraguay have obviously come out against all this, right? They say that the SOFA is a bargaining chip. This is really important, right? For the removal of sanctions of Paraguay's richest man, who is a guy called Oracio Cartes, who is Pena's backer. He's also a former president and he's a longtime grandee of the Colorado Party, which Pena belongs to. And this is where it all gets a bit murky in Paraguay's paraguay sense, right? U.S. officials slapped sanctions on cartes in 2023, citing, quote, rampant corruption, including the deliberate blocking of investigations into organized crime in Paraguay, which he is still believed to be making millions of. Until those 2023 sanctions, Cartes headed the tobacco firm Tabac Lera del Este, which has smuggled cigarettes around Latin America since 1994 and decades before that under different names.
- [25:56]
A
Tobacco smuggling just all over. All over the map these days, man. Still.
- [26:00]
B
Yeah.
- [26:00]
A
Make money doing it.
- [26:01]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your last episode was awesome, man. That was really interesting. And the color. You're welcome, man. I. I love you. I mean, what. And the Colorado Party has been in control of Paraguay since 1947, when other political parties were banned and it was the party of the former dictator Alfredo Stroessner, who propped up a violent police state with billions in illegal cigarette revenues. I, I think I watched like a Alan Wicker documentary from the 1960s where he's like, Jacqueline Furlan Smith, a 40
- [26:30]
A
year old former Canadian military trainer moves to Costa Rica to follow her dreams. But in the summer of 2021, vanishes without a trace. How can a woman just go missing and us put out all that effort to find her and she's still missing? I'm David Ridgeon and this is Someone Knows someone something. Season 10, the Jacqueline Furlan Smith Case, available now on CBC. Listen and wherever you get your podcasts,
- [26:58]
B
they make $3 billion a year just from shipping cigarettes in like giant bomber planes all around the world. It's pretty nuts that they still do that. Oh, oh, yeah, I forgot to mention Stroessner is also good friends back in the day with fugitive Nazis, including Mengele, and major drug traffickers, including Corsican heroin kingpin August Record, which is a subject I'm going to do something about when I'm out there next week in Asuncion. So we'll do a main show on that, I think in about a month from now. So it's a bit rich for Pena to be coming out against gangs, but I guess that's how politics works these days. Anyway, more headline grabbing has been the massive US backed campaign in Ecuador to route drug cartels that have made the small Pacific nation around 18 million people 1 of the most violent places in the world. Almost overnight, we released an episode about the chaos back in January 2024, and that was just after members of a major prison gang called Los Lobos. By the way, do you know what that means, Danny?
- [27:52]
A
Yeah, I took Spanish in high school, dude. It means the Lobos.
- [27:55]
B
Correct.
- [27:55]
A
Which also was the name of the. The gang in the movie. Not Weird Science. What's the other 80s with the robot? The 80s movie with the robot.
- [28:05]
B
Short circuit, Short circuit.
- [28:07]
A
Short circuit, yeah. I don't know why I thought Weird Science, two completely different insane movies. Both are fantastic. Have your kids watch them. They'll grow up normal.
- [28:16]
B
That's a great message to send to people. Yeah, yeah. These guys lost Lobos, not the robots. Took over a national television. I mean, it would be great if it was robots. It would.
- [28:25]
A
Robot games are like, they're coming, dude.
- [28:27]
B
Yeah, they definitely are coming.
- [28:28]
A
We should write a fear mongering article about that to get attention for the podcast.
- [28:31]
B
Yeah, let's do it. Yeah, we'll make more money than we ever have overnight. Yeah. These guys took over a national television studio in Ecuador's largest city, Gaya Kill. Check out that show for the story of how this bunch of locked up cowboys found themselves sitting on the cocaine trade's latest logistics route of choice. By the way, that was really interesting that, that whole story. Anyway, Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has since launched the so called Mano dura or iron fist campaign against the cartels which are now using Gaia Kill to ship tons of products out past the Galapagos Islands. Not on the turtles. I think the turtles are still safe. Into the Pacific, reaching big consumer markets like Australia and New Zealand, but also getting the whole way around the world to Europe and beyond. It's like crazy how the Pacific is now one of the main drug shipment routes. The drugs, however, have continued to flow right since Naboa did this mano dura thing. In fact, thanks to being wedged between Colombia and Peru, which are the region's biggest coca producers, around 70% of all cocaine produced in those two countries now goes via Ecuador. And last year, Ecuador suffered a record high of 51 homicides per 100,000 inhabitants, making it by far the most violent country in Latin America. That's like wartime statistics. So Naboa's new operation, which involves 75, 000 cops and soldiers in four provinces, that is, that is a hell of a lot of forces, will mark what authorities call a, quote, new phase in the war against criminal groups. We're at war, the interior minister recently told residents in those four provinces. Don't take any risks, don't go out, stay at home. So this one is developing. It's clear things are going to go pretty nuts in Ecuador in the coming weeks. We'll definitely come back to it. Final point in this coalition, Trump's coalition, is that despite 17 countries signing up to it, Latin America's three most populous states, which are Brazil, Mexico and Colombia, have not. So watch this space. Basically things are going to get very, very spicy soon.
- [30:33]
A
Next up for me, more bad news for friends of the pod this time, super cartel bossman Daniel Kinahan and his dad Christy Kinahan, who have been spotted ringside in an off brand UFC fight in Dubai, causing a bit of a stir, which, I mean, we already knew they were there, but it's the first time they've been sighted in quite some time and the first time since the US put big money bounties on their head. 5 million for Daniel, 5 million for his dad and 5 million for his brother, who just doesn't get a lot of attention like the other two do and is probably a little sad about it. For those who don't know, Kinahan is the Irish super cartel boss said to be the biggest drug trafficker in Europe. But I mean, I feel like you guys know who he is, right? I don't need to do serious background on him. We had a big episode on him, what like six weeks ago? Sean and a few others in the past year. So you guys, you guys know. A couple things to note. The images are actually from a fight in June of 2025 and why it's coming out now is thanks to open source, open source info outlet bellingcat. Here's a quote from the write up which is a joint effort with the Times of London. Bellingcat discovered this new footage of the narco traffickers after running a photo posted to social media of one of Daniel Kinahan's adult sons whose name was published last year through face recognition search engine PIM Eyes. It returned a professional photograph of Daniel Kinahan that was taken during the 971 Fighting Championship at the Coca Cola Arena, Dubai city's Dubai Citywalk district on June 14, 2025. The image, which had been posted to a Dubai photography company's website, was removed yesterday hours after Bellingcat contacted a representative for the Kinahans to see. Comment.
- [32:04]
B
Yeah, we actually interviewed one of the guys involved in those investigations a few months ago for the Patreon. So that's well worth a go if you want to know how the sausage is made. And it's a big sausage, Danny. It's a real, it's a real big sausage.
- [32:14]
A
Settle down, settle down. But yeah, I think they also, it wasn't just those photos. They went back and found like live streams or streaming videos of the event. So they got more to confirm that it was in fact The Kinahans. And Kinahan is famously a big fan of the fights. He had his own big boxing promotion company in Dubai years ago when he was aiming for a bit of a rebrand and was photographed with heavyweight boxer and repeated loser to usyk, Tyson Fury, a whole lot. Also, another hilarious open source investigation years ago, I think maybe a year ago, maybe two, revealed how Kinahan also famously was a big fan of leaving Google reviews, I think, for restaurants, which not great moves for a wanted drug lord. Also of note, just in the last month, a top Kinahan Cartel lieutenant, Sean McGovern, was actually extradited to Ireland by the UAE, where he's been charged with murder and other big bad things. I think he actually just pleaded guilty to some of them today or yesterday. We've talked in the past about how Dubai is cracking down quite a bit on its rep as like a mafioso global hotspot for hiding out. Sort of like how the coast of Spain was decades ago. But that seems like it might be changing a bit, you know, now the Kinahans are the top of the top. But if I was them, I would be a little worried. I mean, where can you even go now if you're a narco looking to hide out like Istanbul, if you buy that citizenship. But they eventually kind of crack down. Moscow, North Korea. Just kind of running out of options here, folks.
- [33:33]
B
Yeah, last week's show suggests that Sierra Leone's pretty welcoming, but. Yeah, and it's not currently targeted by drones either. Unless the Ayatollah's got something against Charles Taylor. So maybe it's West Africa.
- [33:43]
A
We all got something against Charles Taylor, bud. Another interesting thing, though, is who he's sitting next to. The founder of the fighting event and a former UFC fighter himself. He had like, four fights. Is that this guy Munir Lazi Lazez. Lazez.
- [33:56]
B
I think he's.
- [33:57]
A
Yeah, Lazez from Tunisia originally. They've been photographed together before and appear to be boys. And Munir has been linked to big money deals for crude oil tankers that were later sanctioned by the US for helping the Iranian regime, writes Bellingcott. Quote, In 2023, he was listed as the director of two companies that paid more than $80 million for two oil tankers. Both ships were sanctioned the following year for their roles in assisting the Iranian regime. The Kinahans themselves have been linked to Hezbollah and Iranian networks, as well as Russian oil smuggling. And these particular ships are also linked to the Canhans through an address in the Marshall Islands, which was used by another tanker seized off the Irish coast carrying 2 tons of cocaine for their cartel. So it's an interesting sort of confluence of crime and global terrorism. But also five of the six purported senior members of the original super cartel have been arrested. All except Daniel. So start the countdown clock.
- [34:49]
B
Yeah, it's actually insane that this guy is still out there free. My second story today is one we're gonna come back with a full episode later in the year, which is the downfall of the Chinese Cambodian scam emperor Chen Zi, leader of the Prince group, pioneer of modern slavery and money laundering tycoon, pretty much the face of the scam industry, which in a poll now reckons is making between 2 and 3 trillion dollars a year.
- [35:15]
A
Wow. It's really become something else in what, like five or 10 years, man. Yeah, I mean, way bigger than the narco market, I imagine, right?
- [35:21]
B
Not even close. I think it's. It's crazy the figures that are involved in this to go all magazine writer. If a billion dollars in hundreds weighs about the same as a 1 1/2 half up armored US military Humvee. A trillion dollars. I can't even say this without laughing. A trillion dollars weighs roughly the same as almost 200 M1 Abrams tanks. I love those completely pointless comparisons. And I think I've done a beautiful job there.
- [35:45]
A
Sure thing, pal.
- [35:46]
B
Thank you. Yeah. Anyway, Chinzi is was worth a lot of money. Entire pig butchering cities popping up in Cambodia. The recent battles between Thailand and Cambodia have a lot to do with his properties. I spoke about him with Nathan Southern and Lindsey Kennedy in October when I was in Vietnam. And we're going to discuss Prince again with them soon because improbably, those guys still live in Phnom Penh and are alive.
- [36:09]
A
You might be jinxing it right there, but I would not knock on some wood or something if I were you.
- [36:13]
B
I'm not jinxing it. And I know they listen. So hey guys. Yeah, you're doing great work. But also last week Bloomberg came out with a long feature about Chen Zi which has a lot of amazing details about his pre arrest career. And I came across a piece by Oliver Bulo, alum of our Patreon bonuses, who does probably the best work of anyone in the world on dark money, tax havens and money laundering. And he mentions how the Chenzi empire found its way to what might be the quietest corner of the British Empire, if we're still calling it that. Oh, and next week we're actually going to be going into a fair bit of detail about Chen Z2 in Palau, including an interview with the Palau president I did a few days ago. So look out for that. But here is a snippet from the Bloomberg article that shows you just how Chen operated untouched for so long. Quote, in his adopted home of Cambodia, he built himself up as a benevolent rags to riches philanthropist funding COVID 19 relief efforts, local college scholarships. In reality, the China. In reality the China born tycoon was the builder of a vast criminal apparatus fueled by slavery and violence that stole billions from victims as far away as New York City. Chen's carefully woven network of connections protected him from years even after some banks, journalists and researchers began to raise red flags. That's until the moment it all changed. In January, that is January this year, Chen's erstwhile protectors turned on him and extradited him to his homeland. China's Ministry of Public security called the 38 year old the ringleader of a major cross border gambling and scam syndicate and said a group that he led was suspected of multiple crimes. But I'm going to just go out on a limb and say that we are not going to see this guy again. If the Chinese State Security is saying that no, he's gone. This about turn the story says come right off the back of the Thai Cambodian border clashes which are discussed in the October show in Nathan and Lindsay. Ostensibly about land I think in temples, but actually about organized crime. According to Leo Lin, who is a Taiwanese police chief, quote, this is considered one of the largest and most significant transnational organized crime groups in modern history.
- [38:20]
A
So was there ever any thought early on that he was acting like under the permission structure of the CCP or in tandem with them or was he this guy completely off on his own?
- [38:28]
B
Yeah, no, I mean I think that there is a lot and we'll get into it next week's show as well because there's some really interesting stuff with that. But I think that they knew about him for sure and a lot of like the points of contact that he had in separate countries that he was working in, definitely, definitely associate with the ccp. So it's kind of one of those. Either they knew and let him do what he was doing to kind of destabilize things or they were sending them out to do stuff and then he got a bit, a bit annoying for them and now they've probably lined him up against the bathroom wall and stuck something in his head. But a lot of this pours out of the US Treasury's decision last October to seize around 15 billion in Bitcoin accounts related to Chen. I mean, that's just a small portion of the Prince group's wealth as well. Chen's lawyers have since petitioned to reverse the seizure, calling allegations against their client, quote provably and obviously false. Okay, and this is even better. The accusations Chen rancic scam compounds are quote non specific statements and background commentary about conditions in in Cambodia. Okay, good luck with that guys. And good luck too to Cambodian PM Hun Manet, son of longtime leader Hun Sen, who has told media he had no idea Chen was a criminal kingpin, despite media from Los Angeles to Kuala Lumpur using that exact phrase for years. Again, we'll get into this in the main show down the line, but Chen is born in 1987 in Fujian, which is a coastal province on the Taiwan Strait, famously home to criminal gangs, especially so called called snakeheads. Famously, Sister Ping who was the most famous snakehead people smugglers from China into the U.S. chen is just 26 years old, an Internet cafe and gaming magnate when Chinese police cracked down in 2011. And he moves to Cambodia and he gets citizenship there by investment. Within three years, Chen discovers a country low on rule of law and restrictions and high on potential. He starts out in real estate, but pinch soon has a bank and hospitality wings. And he donates generously to local charities like you just heard to get political powers on side. Here is how he deals with Hun Sen and other visiting leaders, quote. Aware of Hun Sen's fondness for luxury timepieces, Chen started a watchmaking school. Prince Horology was equipped with the most advanced equipment available. According to a former staffer. When Cambodia hosted the association of Southeast Nation Summits in 2022, Hun gifted locally crafted wristwatches etched with Prince's crown shaped logo to world leaders including Joe Biden and Justin Trudeau. Pretty amazing, but Chen at this time is quickly pivot into the nascent scam industry. Opening compounds and casinos while expanding prints into Hong Kong, Singapore, the UK like we heard Palau, and British overseas territories like the Caymans, British Virgin Islands. Long time sanctuaries for organized criminals. These compounds become dens of human trafficking and modern slavery. I mean, we've done quite a lot of shows about this already. While the pig butchering scams they enable make so many billions that Chen has a fleet of over 30 luxury cars, homes in London, Tokyo and Kowloon yachts and a global bitcoin operation. One of Chen's firms in laos has mined 127,271 bitcoin, which at today's price, which is down, I think, right? It's down a lot, is about $9.5 billion, which is not bad. I'll bring in Oliver Below's reporting now because he discovered back in October when Chen's empire was falling apart, that he was also involved in the attempt by a Chinese born Kititian, which is from St. Kitts and Nevis, which also dish out golden passports.
- [42:17]
A
Yeah, they're famous for that.
- [42:18]
B
Yeah, yeah. This crypto king called Justin sun and his attempt to convert the tiny British overseas territory of Pitcairn into an offshore financial haven. Now, this place is one of the most remote inhabited places on the planet. Four volcanic islands smack bang in the middle of South Pacific when you have to take a 32 hour boat ride from French Polynesia just to get there. And it's home to 35 people. They're all descended from nine sailors and 18 Tahitians who mutineered on the HMS Bounty back in 1790. I mean, it's like a story retold by Hollywood three times, right? There are two police officers there, and since the 2004 sexual abuse trial, one single cell prison. Yet even Pitcairn, and this is the crazy thing, hasn't been spared the global slide towards crypto based fraud. Among the $15 billion seized from Chen in October was an account in the territory.
- [43:16]
A
I mean, what on earth. Like, this is a lot of information to process in two paragraphs because I don't know, I mean, apparently there are movies made. I've never heard of this island. This is all. Dude. I mean, I didn't know you never
- [43:29]
B
heard of Mutiny on the Bounty? I think it's like. No, it's like Marlon Brando.
- [43:33]
A
I feel like I know that name, HMS Bounty, but I wasn't familiar with the story and the Justin sun stuff. I knew who he was too. I knew who Tron was. Obviously if there's scams going on in crypto, I'm trying to make money off them. Yeah, but I didn't know all this was happening. And it's like this episode sounds insane.
- [43:49]
B
Yeah, it's just to show you just how far the reaches of this stuff. It's like literally everywhere now.
- [43:54]
A
Is son in prison? Is he one of the ones who got locked up?
- [43:57]
B
I don't think he is, because I looked at his Twitter the other day and he's still posting. But maybe he's posting from behind bars, I'm not sure.
- [44:04]
A
Come on the show, bud.
- [44:05]
B
Yeah, come on the show. Anyway, yeah, Oliver below reports that Justin sun had held a meeting with Pitcairn councillors back in 2020. This is like insane. I mean, they're the same people that are the police, right? Presumably in an attempt to convert the islands into an offshore financial haven. But the plan was squashed when a British governor announced that Tron, which is Sun's crypto trading platform, will not be permitted to establish Bitcoin or cryptocurrency on Pitcairn. And Chen's unfolding demise suggests that that might only be a temporary reprieve, though. It's insane, this stuff. I'll leave the rest of Chen's stories to the main thing, but this is just drop in the ocean of his criminal dealings. I actually know one of the reporters who broke tons of information about Prince and then he had his life threatened. Credibly, he's understandably a bit nervous about speaking on the topic, but if he does, it will be a fan. A fantastic episode for our Patreon subscribers.
- [44:57]
A
Yeah, I mean, that's. This whole thing is pretty wild, man. Should have led with this sort of weird Paraguayan log back and forth instead of.
- [45:05]
B
Yeah, it was either Paraguay or the Pitcairn Islands. That's the kind of stories I'm doing at the moment.
- [45:09]
A
Should have gone with it, but yeah, that is. This is crazy, man. I'm looking forward to that episode. Last up for me is a weird one. And you know how you said earlier on like, this is one of those stories, we want to wait to see how it shapes up before we really talk about it? I mean, this is one of those. Those ones we probably should. It's just. Have you seen this story about the Ukrainian mob boss's son that was kidnapped and dismembered in Bali?
- [45:31]
B
No, I did not.
- [45:33]
A
Pet owner.
- [45:34]
B
Save this. TikTok has free training guides and behavior tips. Potty training tricks, healthy diet ideas. No expensive classes needed. Just scroll and learn.
- [45:45]
A
Download TikTok now. The world moves fast. Your workday even faster. Pitching products, drafting reviews, reports, analyzing data. Microsoft 365 Copilot is your AI assistant for work built into Word, Excel, PowerPoint and other Microsoft 365 apps you use, helping you quickly write, analyze, create and summarize so you can cut through clutter and clear a path to your best work. Learn more@Microsoft.com M365Copilot yeah, I mean, it's been a lot of salacious. A lot of salacious headlines and like sites that obviously are cribbing off other sites. It's a pretty wild one, I think. Something, you know, that that's disensational. My initial instinct is skepticism, very healthy skepticism. But it seems like this could be true. I don't know, man. The story goes that on February 19, there's a video that appears. It's a recording of a man named Igor, or Ihor Komarov. He's 28 years old, on vacation in Bali when he's kidnapped, purportedly. You see, I switched up from alleged to sound different. He's obviously under duress. In this video, he looks like he's been beaten and he's pleading with his parents to pay $10 million to the abductors. $10 million they allegedly stole. He's obviously like been beaten. He's admitting that his parents stole the $10 million and that they need to return the money. He's claiming that his assailants have chopped off some of his limbs, broke his bones. He looks kind of drugged up, too. He also says that he's already been taken to another country. And the video appears four days after he's kidnapped while on a motorbike trip with a friend whose name is Yermark Petrovsky, who gets away and calls the authorities. Soon after the video appears, body parts wash up on the beach in Bali. And a bunch of low level news sites claim the body parts match a DNA sample provided by the man's mother. This is, of course, like a couple weeks later.
- [47:36]
B
And this isn't the plotline to a Showtime series starring Ben Mendelsohn.
- [47:40]
A
No, it's not. I love Ben Mendelsohn, by the way. Very underrated actor.
- [47:44]
B
Very.
- [47:44]
A
And so this whole thing sounds, you know, and I've seen the video too. I don't want to speculate too broadly because as we'll see, it does appear to be potentially real or somewhat real. But it's just the whole thing is very weird. And this is where it gets really confusing. Right. First off, there's no major media reporting on this that I could find, but there does seem to be a few legit Indonesian websites or news outlets that are on it. But the whole thing is very muddled. First off, the reports say that Komarov's father is Oleksandr Petrovsky, alias Narik, a reputed Ukrainian mobster who ran scam call centers in Dnipro, which is in eastern Ukraine, which apparently is a. Was a. Or is a big base for. Probably was because of the war for scam call centers. Did you know about that?
- [48:27]
B
Like, no, I didn't know about that.
- [48:29]
A
And that's like the sort of errors that were first seized by the Russians going back, I think, in 2014. Right. You'll notice, though, that the other friend's name is Petrovsky. So one would assume that he's the father of the friend who got away. But everyone says Narek is this guy, the guy who's been kidnapped's father. A noticeably smaller amount of other reports say the kidnapped guy's father is actually a different alleged gangster or businessman with shady dealings, Sergey Komarov. And the friend is the son of Narek. I did see a report mention that in 2022, Narek's Berlin apartment is raided on suspicions of organizing fraudulent call centers, corruption, and illegal oil and gas extraction. Apparently, that's a big thing in Eastern Ukraine. These scam call centers, as I mentioned. Okay, so the kidnapping and killing. There's allegations that the two Ukrainians were found because the girlfriend of the one killed is a fashion influencer who posted their locations. And there's allegations that the criminal element that kidnapped them is a bunch of Chechens in March. So just like, what, two weeks ago? Indonesian police confirmed that the body parts found are those of Komarov, but he
- [49:31]
B
was still alive and broadcasting after these parts were chopped off him. Like some Gatlan Black Knight. I mean, I wonder if any single person listening to this is going to get that reference. But he was. He had his limbs chopped off at the point he was talking.
- [49:45]
A
So two things. One, I don't think your reference, Black Knight is not about the incredible Martin Lawrence movie where he goes back. That's a fantastic.
- [49:53]
B
It's a. It's a Monty Python reference from.
- [49:56]
A
Okay, well, the Martin Lawrence movie is better than any.
- [49:59]
B
Oh, my God.
- [50:00]
A
And they should make a series of movies where Martin Lawrence goes back to every time period, because they would all be fantastic. Have you. Have you seen Black Knight?
- [50:09]
B
I've not seen Black Knight.
- [50:10]
A
You can't. You can't. So you can't say that it's better than Monty Python.
- [50:12]
B
Right. But you have seen worse than mine. Lawrence. And you think that.
- [50:16]
A
Have not seen Monty Python. Have not seen Monty Python. But there's, you know. Right.
- [50:19]
B
Podcast coming.
- [50:20]
A
It's better than. Than Black Knight. But on a more serious note. Switching. Switching gears. I think the translation might have been. He might have been trying to say that he's got, like, fingers or toes chopped off or something along those lines. But he also talks about how, like, infection might be sitting in. The whole thing is very, very off.
- [50:37]
B
I feel like there is Every single podcast has been made in the world, but except for Martin Lawrence, Monty Python mashup, which is better. We could. I mean, you know, if anything, it's a niche. Should we do it?
- [50:50]
A
We've been. We've moved on in the conversation to the part about the guy getting his body parts chopped off.
- [50:56]
B
Have we? I haven't.
- [50:57]
A
Yeah, I think, I think, I think it's hard to go back and forth, to be honest with you, but I would, I would, I would, I would say that we should probably write a bunch of spec scripts about Martin Lawrence going back to like ancient Egypt maybe, like, who knows what other. What other. What other time periods are there besides medieval times and ancient Egyptians, Ancient Greece. There you go. Caveman era, Revolutionary American war, period. There's just a lot you could do with Martin Lawrence. He's that talented. A comic actor. A year ago, there actually was a case in Bali where a Russian mob kidnapped a Ukrainian tourist and demanded a ransom of $200,000. So this sort of thing is not without precedent, but the whole thing, the whole reporting of it is just weird. Some reports now say seven perpetrators have been arrested in Indonesia already. They give their initials, others say four managed to flee the country and there have been in your poll red notices issued of them. So the whole thing is very. I don't know, man. Indonesian publications have confirmed the Indonesian police saying stuff, English language ones. But the whole thing is weird. So I don't know what to make of it.
- [52:01]
B
Yeah, that is a crazy, crazy story. Before we wrap up today, I got one more story, and that comes from Haiti, which is always a rich vein for gangland stories, and that is last week as we're recording this. So the first or second week of March, the widow of president Jovenel Moise Moyes. Moyes, yeah. Who was assassinated in his bedroom in July 2021, which then led to the island nations overrunning by criminal gangs. She testified in a U. S. Call that he was killed by a conspiracy. This is also pretty nuts. She he was killed by a conspiracy led by a Miami security firm called the counter terrorist unit Federal academy, or ctu, writes the New York Times. Quote, the prosecution says CTU was hoping to overthrow the president in a, quote, violent coup in order to obtain lucrative security contracts from his replacement. The four defendants accused of conspiracy to kill or kidnap the president included CTU's co owners, Archangel Preto Ortiz, who is Colombian, and a Venezuelan American, Antonio Intiago, who also faces charges involving the illegal export of body armor. Also accused of a Haitian American security Firm employee James Solange and Walter Bentemilla, an Ecuadorian American who helped finance the firm's Haiti project. A fifth defendant, Christian Sanon, a Haitian American pastor and would be presidential candidate, will be tried separately at a later date because of health problems.
- [53:37]
A
I believe we did an episode on this, the murder and the subsequent gang war that same year.
- [53:42]
B
Right.
- [53:42]
A
That this happened or maybe a couple months later. But my question. I have a question is this. Is it the trial about, like, saying that this thing happened, or is the wife just kind of, like, making this accusation at the trial?
- [53:54]
B
The tri. The trial is about this. So. Okay. Yeah, yeah, it's been going on some time. It's just that her testimony is coming out now, which is pretty emotional, as you would imagine. So this story is, like, crazy, right? It comes from a 2023 indictment. Eleven guys were charged then of the plot to kill Moyes, which allegedly includes 20 former Colombian soldiers, which, as we've spoken about on other shows, is a favored method of death for cartels around Latin America, not least the artist formerly known as El Menchos, CJNG in Jalisco, Mexico. Prosecutors in this latest trial claimed the Cabal sometimes wore fake U.S. military uniforms and pretending to be State Department, CIA, DEA officials. Here is the Times again. Quote, prosecutors say the security firm also arranged meetings with violent cartel leaders in Haiti to help overthrow Mr. Moyes as part of several increasingly desperate efforts in 2021 to topple him. After Moyes was killed, one of the defendants sent a text saying, the rat is in the box. Prosecutors say the defendants expressed no genuine shock or horror and were focused on their escape plan, which failed as they were cornered and taken into custody. Now, Moyes was murdered just before 2:00am on July 7, 2021, leading, as we said, to Haiti's dominance by gangs, most notoriously those under the former cop and kingpin Barbecue, who's featured on several of our previous shows about Haitian unrests.
- [55:19]
A
I think the gangs were pretty bad before he was killed, right?
- [55:22]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [55:23]
A
Then it just got. Then it just got. It just got a lot worse. Exploded.
- [55:26]
B
Yeah, it got really bad after the earthquake, which was, what, 2009, I think, think. And then, yeah, the whole country fell apart. Like outbreaks of cholera, everything, like the economy falls to pieces and the gangs kind of step in, said Martin Moyes, his widow of that night. Quote, I looked in his eyes. He was in shock. Honey, what's going on? She recalls asking her husband. Honey, he replies, we are dead. The only thing that I saw before they killed him were their boots. She added, then I closed my eyes and I didn't see anything else. It's pretty, pretty terrifying. Level of destruction since then is huge, even by Haitian standards. Since January 2022, 1.5 million people displaced. This is in a population under 12 million and 16,000 people have been killed. Starvation now setting in as gangs have taken over all of Haiti's infrastructure. It's crazy stuff and the subject we'll definitely come back to later this year. You fancy a trip to Port au Prince? Have you. Have you been?
- [56:24]
A
You know, I almost went a few times. I think there's like a famous hotel there, has a pretty legendary reputation. I think actually the proprietor might have been killed during the recent. The last couple of years. But no, I have not. I know Jason Modlock has gone a lot, right. He's like one of the go to guys on the ground there.
- [56:41]
B
Yeah, I interviewed him for a. For a Patreon episode a while back.
- [56:45]
A
I have not. Have not been now.
- [56:47]
B
No, we. Yeah, we should do more about Haiti because it's. Yeah, we kind of let it go for the last year, but we'll get back to it. Yeah.
- [56:54]
A
Anyway, that is stash house patreon.com Underworld podcast tune in next week. See what sunglasses that I wear. I wear this time or next time. And the underworld podcastmail.com for advertising, inquiries, tips and more. More stuff. Any stuff. Every stuff.
- [57:13]
B
Every stuff.
- [57:16]
A
All right, I think that's it, guys. Thanks for. Listen,
- [57:22]
B
Sam. It.
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A
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