← The Underworld Podcast
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- [00:01]
A
Hey, Sal.
- [00:02]
B
Hank. What's going on? We haven't worked a case in years.
- [00:05]
A
I just bought my car at Carvana and it was so easy. Too easy.
- [00:09]
B
Think something's up?
- [00:10]
A
You tell me. They got thousands of options, found a.
- [00:14]
B
Great car at a great price, and.
- [00:16]
A
It got delivered the next day.
- [00:18]
B
It sounds like Carvana just makes it easy to buy your car, Hank.
- [00:22]
A
Yeah, you're right. Case closed. Buy your car today on Carvana. Delivery fees may apply.
- [00:30]
B
This podcast is sponsored by Talkspace.
- [00:32]
A
Last year, I went through many different life changes.
- [00:36]
B
I needed to take a pause and examine how I was feeling in the.
- [00:40]
A
Inside to better show up for the ones who need me to be my best version of myself.
- [00:45]
B
When you're navigating life's changes, Talkspace can help. Talkspace is the number one rated online therapy, bringing you professional support from licensed therapists and psychiatry providers that you can access anytime, anywhere. Living a busy life, navigating a long.
- [01:00]
A
Distance relationship, becoming a first stepfather, Talkspace made all of those journeys possible. I could speak with my therapist in the office. I could speak with my therapist in the comfort of my home.
- [01:11]
B
I was never alone. Talkspace works with most major insurers and most insured members have a $0 copay. No insurance, no problem. Now get $80 off your first month with promo code space80 when you go to talkspace.com match with a licensed therapist today at talkspace.com save $80 with code space80@talkspace.com.
- [01:54]
A
Welcome back to the Underworld podcast. The audio visual programmer, two journalists, one of wear sunglasses indoors who have reported on international organized crime all over the world. Bring you a new story on international organized crime from past, present and future every single week. Well, except for this week, sort of. We'll explain why I am one of your hosts, Danny Gold. I am joined by legendary magazine writer Sean Williams, who is in the process of transition. He's transitioning from a New Zealand yokel to a sexy Latin, I don't know, tango dance person. Right this very week as he moves to Argentina. Like two weeks from a week from.
- [02:36]
B
Now, Something like that, as we're recording this. Two weeks. But yeah, when this is out, maybe I'm on my way. I don't know how that's going to work. Yeah, it's pretty crazy, but not tango. That's. That's way too high energy for me. I like the cumbia stuff. You listen to much of that. It's really cool. It's like chill.
- [02:52]
A
Looking forward to you talking about it all the time. I will look Since Sean is moving his entire family and dog and baby literally across the world, and he's on the verge of actually a breakdown, he's putting out a front, but he is hanging on by a thread.
- [03:07]
B
No, I need help.
- [03:08]
A
We decided to save him the troubles of writing a script this week and hit you guys with a stash house episode instead of just airing a repeat. Because there's a lot going on right now in Crimeland, and, you know, we need to continuously feed the content beast. It is our burden to bear the massive boulder that never gets to the top of the hill. So apologies for not having a regular episode this week, but, like, we wanted to get you something. So is this going to be a little low effort? It might be, but it's still content. Patreon.com podcast for bonuses or sign up on Spotify or iTunes. The Underworld podcastmail.com for tips and advertising inquiries.
- [03:42]
B
Do you want to know? Actually, a little aside, it's not really me that has the issue. It's my dog. So my dog is going from Wellington, New Zealand, right? Get this. To Auckland to Toronto, to Vancouver, to Santiago de, Chile, to Buenos Aires. And if that sounds. My dog makes that trip alive and not, like, in a completely.
- [04:05]
A
Please don't do that.
- [04:08]
B
I will. Yeah, maybe I can make a bet on Kalshee that she. She survives.
- [04:12]
A
You stop. Please stop. You can't just put. Can't put her in, like, a bag. Like, it's a small dog, right?
- [04:18]
B
No, it's a medium. It's a medium. Not. Not a dog bag. Not a bag dog.
- [04:23]
A
That sucks, man. I'm really.
- [04:25]
B
Yeah. Sad.
- [04:26]
A
Anyway, this has been our impression of what every other podcast that isn't about organized crime is like. But we are going to talk about Ryan Wedding because we have got so many messages about him in the last. What is it, two weeks? He's the Olympic snowboarder turned drug impresario that just got busted in Mexico. How could we not start off with that? A few people have been like, you guys should do an episode on him. We did in May of 2025. It's like 45 minutes. It is a good one. If you want a regular episode and haven't listened to that one before, definitely go back and listen to this. But let's get into the arrest. For those who don't know, Wedding is a former Canadian Olympian snowboarder, though. I mean, he placed, like, 23rd at the salt Lake City game. So, I mean, let's be real. Like, he's not. He's not Shaun White. Okay, low effort Olympian, he began. There's no such thing. I'm just. I would not never disrespect the Winter Olympics. Except for curling. He began a meteoric rise in the drug game in the 2000s, culminating with him being pretty high up in the Sinaloa cartel, especially for a foreigner. There's been comparisons to Chapo and Escobar and El Mayo, which are absurdly overblown. I mean, it's like comparing a college basketball star to LeBron. But he was making big time power moves, like bringing in hundreds of millions in product. You've seen the number of billion thrown on a lot. I don't know if that's actually the case. People love a big round number, but he wasn't some like two bit player. This guy was making serious, serious moves. So he does some time in jail, I think in the late 2000s, but by the late 2010s, he is a serious player. And the Canadiens are really after him into the 2000 and twenties. He's having people killed. He's involved in serious trafficking. Like I said, if you want in depth, go back and listen to that episode because we're just going to talk about really the arrest and what's going on there, because that's, I mean, that's crazy, right? In October of 2024, the feds indict. The US feds indict him for leading a major transnational criminal organization. In January of 2025, he allegedly has a witness killed in Colombia, I think at the behest of his lawyer, who actually suggested that his life would be a lot easier if that witness disappeared. Something along those lines. It was very direct, which again, as we always tell you, you want a criminal lawyer, not a criminal lawyer. Yeah, I've been fond of that line.
- [06:44]
B
I think it's good enough to do it twice. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [06:48]
A
In March of 2025, he makes the 10 most wanted list and there's $10 million offered for him. Then in November, there's more charges, including the witness killing and the money is up to 15 million. So, yeah, I think we talked about this in the episode in May, but with the feds paying that much attention, his days are numbered. And then randomly, like a week before his arrest, his arrest happens. On January 22, an Instagram account, I think it popped up like January 16, starts claiming to be him with a bunch of photos that it turns out were like somewhat, I think AI, but really looked like they had something to do with his life and what he was doing. It fooled a Lot of people. I was pretty skeptical at the time, not 100% convinced it was fake. But I did offer a prediction that if it was real, he was going to be caught soon, which is kind of half right because it turns out he was caught a week later. But the account, I think is almost definitely faked, despite the fact that it's still kind of pretending to be like someone on the inside. But it's weird. Weird timing for sure, man. Very weird timing.
- [07:48]
B
Yeah. And also, what's the thinking on how he was able to evade arrest for so long? Was he getting protected by the cartel or did he have people, authorities in his pocket? I mean, yeah, it's pretty strange how he's able to. It's like so high profile and yet he was on the run.
- [08:04]
A
Yeah, I mean, he is in Mexico, you know, so. So he was probably. And I don't know exactly where he was the last. The last year and a half. Not sure exactly where he was, but he was in Mexico. He was high level in the cartel, obviously has a ton of money, a ton of soldiers, I don't know if a ton. But he has killers on his side, obviously. And I. The. Everyone was saying he was protected high level by Caloa, which makes sense. He was bringing in a lot of money. But at some point, you know, with all this attention, things get to be a headache and like, he's like a 6 foot 3 Canadian. He looks like shy. He looks like Jared, who if Hollywood has any idea what they're doing, you're hiring Jared Kisso, right? I mean, I make it a comedy, but you're hiring Jared Kisso to play him in the movie that's inevitably going to come out about his life. Because it's fascinating. They look similar enough. He also looks like a juiced up guy from that guy in the Drew Carey show whose name I always forget. But yeah, I think he was protected by the cartel and by his money. And then eventually, you know, it got to be a little, little too much heat. But let's get to the arrest, right? It's similar to the El Mayo arrest in that there's like four competing stories with important officials on the American side and the Mexican side kind of contradicting each other. Mexican officials say he turned himself in with some people speculating that he may have pissed off, you know, the, the higher ups and actually wanted safety, that they were scared that he was. That he was scared that he was going to get killed, while his own defense attorney says he was arrested and did not turn himself in, which I feel like is like a reversal of how it usually goes. Right. If you're the defense attorney you want to. Generally, the whole thing is very weird. Vanity Fair had a big article saying that Mexican law enforcement grabbed him, but that there were some serious negotiations that led to him being handed over to an FBI hostage rescue team, which would lead one to believe that he was about to be killed. Maybe he just became not worth the effort for Sinaloa to keep him under wraps. You know, the Americans are getting loud. It's hard to hide a giant Canadian man with a 15 million dollar bounty on his head. But yeah, so the whole thing is convoluted at the moment and there's definitely politics involved. Owen Grillo, who is my go to guy when it comes to Mexico cartel stuff, him and Luis Chaparro, he runs the crash out substack that I subscribe to. I think it might be the only substack that I subscribe to. He wrote, quote. Yet to add even more intrigue, Mexican journalist Carlos Lorette cited a Mexican government source saying it was a surrender to the FBI negotiated over weeks. And the US Embassy released a statement about the arrest which is titled as the Entrega Voluntaria do Ryan Wedding or voluntary surrender. This could be talking about the surrender from Mexico into U.S. custody. However, also weird. Cash money. Patel, the head of. The head of. I mean the head of the FBI happened to be in Mexico when this happened.
- [10:54]
B
So why is his defense attorney. What is he talking about then? That's pretty strange.
- [11:00]
A
I don't know. Maybe it's an effort to keep him alive, but he's been extradited so quickly he's going to be in protective custody in the US So I. Maybe it's for his ego. The whole thing is very confusing and I don't know enough of the intricate details or like the way that these things work to really offer good insight on it. Wedding does plead not guilty, which again, if he made a deal, you would think he would plead guilty. It's. The whole thing's weird. That's definitely not going to slow down the speculation of a deal being cut or him turning himself in. Also crazy, his lawyer, Anthony Colombo, grandson of a mafia boss, Colombo family, allegedly. I haven't seen that completely verified, but I've seen it like mostly verified. And just as we.
- [11:42]
B
Mostly verified.
- [11:43]
A
Mostly verified. Just as we were about to record this, the Wall Street Journal comes out with a bombshell that the wedding capture was part of a secret FBI operation on Mexican soil. Which may not sound like much, but Mexican Law bans foreign agents from being physically there and in law enforcement ops on its soil and from participating in detentions or raids. But according to the Wall Street Journal, quote, law enforcement officials made contact with Wedding, presumed to be armed and dangerous, and in an intense negotiation reminded him that his associates have been captured of millions of dollars of his assets have been seized. Eventually, FBI agents handcuffed Wedding. So that whole thing is supposed to be a secret, right? Because that, that's one reason why Claudia Sheinbaum, who's Mexico's president, has said that this version isn't true. Disagreeing with Cash Money Patel. Because it would make her look pretty. I mean, how do you not call them that? It would make her look pretty bad. Because historically, US Agencies, while they've largely provided intelligence coordination, training and support, they're not supposed to, like, be involved in direct law enforcement operations conducted independently on Mexican soil. It's, you know, a blow to Mexico sovereignty, especially with all the stuff that the American administration is saying about going in there. It makes her and her administration not look great. The whole thing is very sensitive as obviously the American administration is basically being like, we're going to go in there hard against the cartels, and they're working currently with Mexican law enforcement to go after some high value targets. Mexico also, as we've talked about, they've been extraditing planeloads of high value targets like that, they already hold like, like, like that, you know, which generally is a lengthy, lengthy process.
- [13:20]
B
Yes. There's going to be like tons more to come out of this story. Plus, I mean, we said we were saying at the start of the year how, I guess like narcotics and the cartels are going to be the big story between the US And Latin America, like the whole of the continent. Right. In this year. So this is just another example of how drugs are leading everything. Yeah, it's really interesting.
- [13:42]
A
Yeah. I mean, the Mexico thing I think is, is, I don't know, it's, it's a little wild. It's not exactly Taylor Sheridan material, but it's, it's, it's pretty crazy. I mean, the wedding in general, I think this is a, this is a Mexican guy who's won in the US it doesn't make nearly as many headlines. I think the fact that wedding is this Canadian Olympian snowboarder is like, you know, gonna get attention. Certainly got my attention.
- [14:06]
B
Jared Kiso. Who's that? You're gonna have to teach me.
- [14:10]
A
Okay, so Jared Kiso is like a, like a writer, actor guy. He had a show called Letterkenny about, like, a rural Canadian town. That's just, like, one of the funniest things ever. And then he has a show called Shorzy about Canadian hockey players. It's like a spinoff, but it's about hockey. Like, Friday Night Lights is about football. It's the funniest thing on tv. If you're not watching it, you should rectify that situation, like, immediately.
- [14:31]
B
It's fantastic. I have a. I actually have a New Zealand recce as well. There's a show called the Educators about. About teachers in Auckland that's really actually funny, which is crazy.
- [14:42]
A
Is it funnier then. What was it called? The Chris flight?
- [14:46]
B
The concords.
- [14:47]
A
Mr. G. No.
- [14:48]
B
Mr. G. Dude. Oh. Oh, oh, that's Australia. Yeah. God, that's so good. That is so good.
- [14:53]
A
I think it's something from HBO now, but.
- [14:55]
B
Yeah. Really?
- [14:57]
A
I think so.
- [14:58]
B
Oh, man.
- [14:59]
A
Yeah, from Target, dude.
- [15:00]
B
Kath and Kim as well. Yeah, they do good stuff out here. Anyway. Yeah. Getting back on Brand, I should just say. I just published a big story at Harper's Magazine about the Philippine drug war. It took me 10 years to put together. I first went out and saw this family in, like, 2016 when it was all kicking off. And then over the course of, like, four or five separate visits over the next few years, I kind of met them, learned about what they were going through in the drug war. Their sons were, like, taking meth, and they were having a pretty rough time. And, yeah, it was, like, all about how Duterte did what Marcos had done back in the 70s. Like Ferdinand Marcos, Martial law created this crazy totalitarian state from, like, nothing. And there was some stuff on Duterte's all involved. And there was some stuff on Duterte's own involvement in the drug trade, too, which we got into right. In a show a while back.
- [15:55]
A
Yeah, I think that we. You talked about that. You were the first person I know talking about that, but I don't follow the story closely, but, yeah, that was a big show that we did. Yeah. Call that. He's. He. Is he in. In prison? Right? Is he in the hake right now?
- [16:07]
B
Yeah, he's in the Hague. He's. He's done, so. Yeah, but he's like, family are taking over now. He's like a big dynasty. This is the thing that he claims he was an outsider, but, yeah, if you. If you read my Harper story, it's like he actually came from an incredibly privileged background where he had, like, house staff, and he just thought that his bodyguards were kind of cool. So he would walk around with a gun and speak like a bit of a thug because he didn't want to be a little Nepo baby. And he kind of transferred that onto the national stage. But yeah, if anyone wants to do me a massive favor, head over to the Harper's website. The story is called the Sanctuary. And because it's this gigantic crazy building next to the area that I reported on which is a like, I think it's an eight story funeral home, which is massive. It's like completely bizarre building. And I guess we'll put a link to the story on the socials too, right?
- [17:02]
A
Yeah, man. Harper's magazine. Great magazine. Worst promotion I've ever seen for anything ever. Go there and read, read Sean's. Sean's story. I mean I thought the part like you, you did this whole. It felt like like Soviet in a way. The kind of like snitching on your neighbor thing that you talked about. Like getting revenge by reporting a neighbor as like a drug dealer or a drug user to get them killed. Like I dislike. Actually that's not true. I like my neighbors. I was going to say you don't have to snitch. No.
- [17:29]
B
If you just gave us a drug dealer.
- [17:31]
A
No, you dislike your neighbor, it's one thing. But being like, I'm going to sit neighbor. So he gets murdered, like, you know, people are clomping upstairs sometimes it annoys me. I don't think I, I want to see them killed yet.
- [17:42]
B
Yeah, it's like. So in the 70s, what Marcos did was he turned the old colonial shape of these like barrios, like Baron guys. People might know this, but cities in the Philippines are made up of barrios which were renamed under Marcos to their like Filipino name. And he figured out that if you've got no money, you're like a Tim Pot dictatorship. You can turn that into like a East German kind of thing just by that's switching. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of that. That world. And you can, you can turn the Baron guy. Captain is this guy is like a mini mayor. And if you make him do your bidding, then you can just use him to terrorize the people within that local neighborhood. And that's kind of what happened in a drug war under Zuri. He realized he had this kind of big red button he could just press. It was like, boom. Marcos. And he could go back to those times, but instead of going against and it was like communists and other groups back in the Marcos years, he just reshaped it to be drug users, drug smugglers and things like that, which is why everyone got killed almost overnight. So it's not the most uplifting story you're going to read all year, but it is bang on the subject that we talk about here. And yeah, I hope people enjoy it. It took me a long time to put together. So yeah, that's that, that's that, that's that grade A piece of promotion for my, for my work outside the pod. But my, my first story for today's show is like, it's pretty amazing actually. It's the Athletic, which I think is in house at the New York Times now, right. It's the. The tale of Adrian Heath who is a storied pro footballer, a bit of a club legend at Everton, which is a big side in England. I think he played like 250 games, just like a huge amount. He was kidnapped in November 2024 by a gang of guys who had done it before and they did it after him as well. Kudos to Paul Torio. He wrote this thing because it's really brilliantly written. It's like a bit of a thriller. The best place to start with this is actually a British national crime agency, the nca. They had a statement that they sent to Tanorio which goes like this quote. We can confirm officers from the NCA are investigating allegations linked to a fake football consortium who are offering professional footballers employment which has resulted in threats of violence and the transfer of monies. With no employment or contracts actually existing.
- [20:04]
A
That is pretty wild stuff. I mean what, what a way to seize on getting money. But also, yeah, have we ever done a stash house where you didn't do a story about some sort of like soccer football crime? No element like maybe you should just start a organ like a soccer crime substack. Make some side money though. I don't think, I don't know if FIFA would be interested in co sponsoring it or anything like that.
- [20:27]
B
Yeah, today I am a kidnapper. Yeah, I don't know, they're just so good, man. This story is, is like juicy as hell. And yeah, I do just want to do football stories forever. This story begins back in October 2023. So this is when Adrian Heath has been spending like 15 years of his life coaching teams in the U.S. austin, Aztecs, Orlando City, Minnesota United. I don't know any of those teams actually. Quick question. Why are all min. Minneapolis teams called the Minnesota somethings like the Twins, Vikings, Timberwolves? Is that, is that a thing? Why is that a thing?
- [21:01]
A
That's what every sports team is like. The New York Giants, The New York Jets? The New York Rangers? What do. I don't. I don't follow the question.
- [21:07]
B
Oh, okay. What about the. The Tex. Oh, the Texas Rangers. Damn.
- [21:12]
A
Yeah, they're all. What's going on with you, bud?
- [21:15]
B
No, Green Bay. Green Bay. They're not called the Wisconsin packers, right?
- [21:18]
A
Oh, you mean because they're called Minnesota, not Minneapolis?
- [21:21]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it's like, no Minneapolis.
- [21:24]
A
It's still not a great question, but it's not as bad as I originally thought.
- [21:28]
B
I'm not going to fill it, though, so it wasn't that bad a question. Anyway, by October 2023, Heath is out of a job. And he gets a call the following summer in 2024, from a British agent, asking him if he's going to be open to a job in Saudi Arabia. He says, yeah, maybe, if the conditions are right. The job, Adrian Heath is told, is then taken by somebody else. But a few months later, that same club, they're not doing so well, and the job comes up again, which happens a lot in football because it's a silly sport. So you get the call, you get the agent again. He says, fancy revisiting this. And Adrian says, yeah. So here's the article again. Quote, Adrian made some calls to contacts who worked in Saudi Arabia, including Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard. And by the way, a little aside, if you've not seen Steven Gerrard saying Mahab in a Scouse accent for his, like, Instagram video when he moved out there, it's worth seeing. They all had good things to say about the club and working in the Saudi leagues. Soon, the agent said the club's owner wants to meet with him. He asked if Heath could meet in Morocco, where the shake. Hey guys, it's Andrew from the Scary Mysteries podcast, where every single week we dive into insane and creepy true crime compilations, as well as cover the most terrifying and strange news stories currently happening all around the world. We go into all the topics you want to hear about. Missing persons killers, UFOs and more. Best of all, we don't waste your time with any fluff or fillers, just straight into all the dark details. If you like true crime, then you're going to love us. So go check out the Scary Mysteries podcast right now. Had several hotels and other businesses. You can see where this is going.
- [23:10]
A
Those good things are tens and millions of good things.
- [23:13]
B
I would say there's so. There's so many good things that there are almost no bad things at all. Heath gets flight details for Tangier and a five star hotel booking. So far, so good. Maybe suspicious, Mr. Heath, I don't know. On November 18, 2024, he steps off the plane and two men greeting with flowers and. And then they get on into a car and they set off. But 40 minutes in, the car seems to take a sharp turn and before long they're in a small apartment in a sketchy part of town, in a smoke filled room where three men tell Heath he's not actually here for a job, he's been kidnapped. And furthermore, he's going to be sending them money. And if you don't, one of them tells him you won't see your wife again. You won't see your two kids and your grandkids. So he manages to stall them first. Like he says, okay, there's seven hours difference to the U.S. like, no one's awake. I'm not going to be able to make any transfers yet. And then to lull his wife into a full sense of security, these guys then get Heath to FaceTime and say he's okay, you know, everything's fine, honey, I'm here, I'm having a great time. While they're holding a blade to his neck. And this goes on, Heath's wife realizes something's up. Actually, she realizes things up when he. When he uses proper grammar in his text messages, which is. Which is sad. These Moroccan kidnappers learned perfect English is the one thing that screwed him up. Eventually, the family finds out the captors haven't turned off the location services on his phone, which is like a whole other level of don't Instagram your crimes. And I think we've encountered that one before. His son then reaches out to the UK agent who got him this quote unquote deal. And I'm going to head back to the article. Quote. In what they would recount as an aggressive phone call, Harrison, his son, demanded to know what was happening. He sent the agent the screenshot of where his father was, by chance, the father of a kid on the youth soccer team Harrison coached in New Jersey was an official at the FBI office in New York. It's a lot, it's a lot of like misfortune for these Moroccan captors.
- [25:13]
A
I mean, it's not a great, like kidnap a guy from the UK overseas and hold him. I don't know, man, it seems like a lot could go wrong.
- [25:20]
B
It's a bit underpants known, right? It's like, yeah, yeah, Step one, kidnap player, Step three, rich calls are made and the kidnappers seem to panic. And they tell Heath, grab His things. They then speed back through the night. So they've given up. Right? And this is the funniest part of the entire story. Heath is so British that he then, like, he feels uncomfortable in the silence, so he tries to make small talk by telling them, quote, oh, Morocco were great in the World Cup. I mean, he's not wrong, hands down. I mean, they did great. They were great. It's like the most English thing I've ever come across. They end up stealing $600 cash and they dump him back at the airport. He gets on a plane to Madrid and then he's safe. But he's. He's been in Morocco 24 hours in total, which it's like, definitely not the worst 24 hours a foreigner has spent in Morocco, but it is. It is pretty bad.
- [26:09]
A
I hear good things about Morocco, man, from, like, multiple people. I've heard lovely things.
- [26:13]
B
Oh. I mean, I've been. I think it's fantastic. I'm thinking more about the people who get their head cut off, but. So I love Morocco.
- [26:21]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. That was a. That was a thing that happened.
- [26:23]
B
Yeah, yeah, that was. Yeah.
- [26:25]
A
Ye. Yeah, I forgot about that. Forgot about that.
- [26:28]
B
He tells. He tells the League Managers association, which is the union, about the ordeal, but otherwise he keeps stum.
- [26:34]
A
Right.
- [26:34]
B
Which isn't great because he later finds out this same crew had done it once before him, I think, and twice afterwards. But this kind of thing is becoming more common in football, which is kind of why I brought it up. In fact, I'm definitely going to do a soccer special just to please Danny, to coincide with the World cup later this year. Yeah, there is so much crazy stuff. I've got a whole lot file of this. This. These things like fake agents, human trafficking, players from Asia and Africa. There's match fixing. There's the Southeast Asian scam centers, of course, and there are some pretty incredible tales of players who found themselves wound up in the narco trade as well. So I will come back to all of this later on, and you're going to hear a lot of stuff that you don't know what the hell I'm talking about, which is going to be great.
- [27:18]
A
Yeah. Speaking of the Narco trademark, another big story out of cartel land. El Botox has been captured. Did I know who this was before? No, I did not. But his nickname, El Botox. That's a pretty good nickname. Even though Botox is just for what, like, to not people not have wrinkles, but for some reason, like a cartel guy called El Botox that sounds. It sounds scary to me. Like, it sounds like he does devious things. Is it. Is that just me or like it.
- [27:44]
B
Sounds like he goes in. I mean, he irons out the wrinkles, which sounds hideous.
- [27:48]
A
Or just like. I don't know, man. Like, I heard that Nick him. And I was like, this guy is a bad human being. So the thing about El Botox though, is that he wasn't really a drug trafficking guy. He was an extortion guy. Primarily the lime growers of Mexico. Big issues with the cartels extorting them. Remember, it was a big thing with avocado growers a while back. Anyway, his full name is Cesar Alejandro Sepulveda Arellano, and he led a group known as the White Trojan. White Trojans who worked with Los Viagras, who are actually pretty well known. And I want to do an episode on. And they work with Jalisco New Generation. But it is amazing how you got different.
- [28:26]
B
You got Trojans working with Viagras. Yeah.
- [28:30]
A
Which is. I didn't even pick up on that. But yeah, I mean, we talk about. We talk about cartels, but they really are like a cartel, you know, they're. They're a consortium of like many different, different groups like this. And they're, they branch off, they fight each other, all stuff like that. So elbowtox was actually active in Michoacan, which is a wild, wild state. I mean, that's saying a lot. I think. We haven't really done a lot on Mitcho Akan. Did you do an episode on the Knights Templar a while back?
- [28:58]
B
Yeah, we did. And it came up a bit in that Diego Maradona episode as well at the end of that, because he went out there to coach one of the teams and there was some stuff about that episode.
- [29:10]
A
Yeah, but there's a lot we could do there. We should get some stuff done on the familia Mito Akan. You know, you've got the auto defenses, the sort of protection groups that rose up and then got kind of wrapped up themselves. Gets pretty gnarly. I don't know if you guys have seen Cartel Land, but it's a great doc on it. Shop by some guys I know. So RIP Ross McDonald. Amazing, amazing cinematographer. But back to Elbow Tox. In October, an agricultural leader who had spoken out about all the extortion that farmers were going through is found murdered in his car. Elbotox. That's what he just got arrested for. He's believed to have been the one behind it and a whole bunch of other murders. And that man, Bernardo Bravo, the guy was murdered. He was the president of a local citrus growing organization. You know, it's not just people have this misconception, I think that it's just drugs that these guys do, but they really do have their hand in everything. Like they are a state with this state. And according to the ap, Lime Grower is actually established and led the biggest ever armed vigilante movement against the cartels of Mexico in 2013. They expelled the Knights Templar from Mitchell Akan in 2013 and 2014. But eventually those groups were infiltrated or co opted. A lot of the leaders were either killed or fled. I think Bernardo Bravo was like one of the few that was, that was left, writes the ap. Quote, two weeks after his killing, a gunman killed popular Uruapan Mayor Carlos Alberto Monzo, another outspoken critic of the cartel's control of Michoacan. The two homicides. Two homicides and the popular outcry that followed spurred the administration of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to send more troops to Michoacan. It just, it never really stops in Mexico, man. You know, we might stop paying attention to some of these places, me included, but it just, it just doesn't stop.
- [30:52]
B
It's also so embarrassing for the Mexican state that high profile like farming union workers and stuff like this are getting chopped down. I mean, like there's a reason that America is talking about going in like getting troops on the ground. Right. Because it's just nuts that the state can't rain this.
- [31:09]
A
I mean, it's, it's unmanageable, you know.
- [31:13]
B
Yeah.
- [31:14]
A
And speaking of states that can't handle things, and speaking of stories that we've covered, big news out of Surrey, British Columbia. That is kind of insane. Someone in Canadian media, on social media was saying that the entire city has been taken over, that they've lost control, which, let's not be insanely hyperbolic, but still pretty crazy. What happened is that Indo Canadian gangsters, the next generation, Bindi Halls, Bindi hall is like, I think the, the top dog or was the top dog in the 90s from the, from, from that sort of new iteration of gangster in Canada. We did a fantastic episode on him a while back. That new iteration has moved on from drug dealing and hit into good old, good old fashioned extortion. So much so that the mayor of Surrey, that's a small city south of Vancouver, where a lot of these gangs originated from and still operate, called on the Canadian national government to issue a state of emergency and deal with the problem after 35 incidents in one month, quote. The city of Surrey is experiencing an acute and escalating crisis of organized extortion, intimidation and targeted shootings resulting in fear, trauma and economic harm to residents and business owners, said Locke, reading the motion. Residents and business owners are living in constant fear. Public safety is at risk and the social and economic impact is real. The federal government needs to act now to give authorities the additional tools we need to keep our residents safe, the mayor said. Canada, man, like way wilder than than people think. I'm still slowly working on a two parter about that area. When it comes to the gang wars that followed Bindi Johal, you know, the United nations gang, the Bacon Brothers, the Scorpions. I thought it had calmed down, but even decades later it seems like these gangs are still strong.
- [32:53]
B
And I actually was looking at something that is related to all this. Recently there was a murder. Have you heard of kabaddi, the sport in India?
- [33:01]
A
Yes, you've talked about it before. But tell people what it is because.
- [33:04]
B
Yeah, yeah, it's as far as I can make out, it's like kind of tag and wrestling. But the whole way through you've got to say the word kabaddi over and over again. So you hold your breath. It's pretty nuts. It's like a, it's like a schoolyard game. But it's big business in India now. They have like a premier league and there's teams all over the country. And one of the big players, and I think he was a promoter as well, was recently shot dead after a game I think in somewhere outside like Chandigarh, somewhere near like Punjab. And it's related, some people are saying to the Bindi Johal, like Canadian Indian gangs, I think they're trying to exert influence and extortion on the kabaddi league. It's kind of wild, man.
- [33:48]
A
There's a lot of back and forth. I think a lot of gangsters are involved with kabaddi. There was something about it, I think we talked about it, maybe the last stash house. But yeah, those gangs do not, do not play around, man. Some of them are involved in terrorist actions. No, it's, it's wild, wild, wild stuff. They don't get enough attention. So in surrey There were 132 extortion attempts reported in 2025. I mean for like the western world, like that is pretty freaking high, man.
- [34:15]
B
Yeah.
- [34:15]
A
Surrey is not like a, like a, like a dire poor community. Right. It's like pretty. I think it's relatively middle class even a lot of upper class areas. The gangsters are. A lot of them are middle class too, which is like another interesting element to that. And those are the ones reported. That's the key word there. 49 incidents of shots being fired at homes and businesses. That's nuts, dude. That's like, I mean we're talking like sicily in the 80s over here, right? Well, maybe not that much, but still Surrey is home to a pretty wild collection of these middle class Indo, Canadian, Punjabi games and other sort of gangs that came up in the 90s. And you know, most of them got big into drug dealing, importing and retail but very, very violent. And it seems like in recent years they've sort of branched off to some tried and true old school gangster methods which, you know, extorting small businesses. But like pretty wild to see like a state, like a, you know, city in Canada declaring a state of emergency like this. It's, it's nuts.
- [35:11]
B
Yeah, that is wild. I mentioned, well, I mean speaking of stuff that is wild and mentioning scam centers which I did for that football story earlier actually I had Nathan and Lindsay, Nathan Southern and Lindsay Kennedy over at my place this week. They are traveling through New Zealand. So yeah, that was nice to hang out with people in person that can actually make it to New Zealand. That never happens. But yeah, I'm going to speak to them for a bonus show about what they've been reporting lately because it's really, really interesting. And we're going to do a show about the Prince Group which has also just imploded after years of insane levels of crime all over Asia.
- [35:49]
A
Can you explain to everyone what the Prince Group is?
- [35:51]
B
Ye, it's like a gigantic conglomerate. I think it might be the biggest company in Cambodia. They're into, they're into everything, right? They, they do like real estate, they do transport, but they also are huge into the scam industry, like some say the biggest player in that. And for years they've been untouchable, but now they're not. And yeah, given Prince leader and billionaire Chen, Chen Zi, I think I'm saying that right. Gen Z, Gen Z was just caught an extradite from Cambodia to China. Yeah, there's some interesting stuff going on in that world at the moment. I mean my bet is that I think he's going to get quietly shuffled off into a corner and shot because I think he knows a lot about who is taking backhanders in various parts of the world. But as we're recording this like China has just announced that it's executed 11 members of the Ming crime family which is one of the so called fourth families running compounds across northern Myanmar. So here's CNN reporting this quote, the 11 people executed were sentenced to death in September after being found guilty of crimes including homicide, illegal detention and fraud. The crime family headed by Ming Shui Zhang Ming Shui Chang. Sorry, my, my cocaine Mandarin is a bit rusty these days. Had long been tied to an infamous compound called Crouching Tiger Villa in Kokang, an autonomous region on Myanmar's border with China. At its peak the group had 10,000 people working to conduct scams and other crimes. Now I guess the Eagle eared listeners will know about Kokang because yeah, we did that huge two parter on the cocaine cowboys around a year or two ago and the Ming came up there, right? They were based out of the city of Lokang and they were wiped out by Chinese authorities working with regional records as part of Operation 1027, so called because it began on October 27, 2023. Actually I was speaking to my friend Connor this morning and we were discussing that the town that these guys were picked up in just outside of Lokang, we'd been there, we were like ah, that was the village where there were all these like weird teenagers telling us to off and it had off written in English on one of the buildings. And then every, we were kind of like skulking around looking for a meth lab and they said yeah, it's like round the back of that building but don't go there because they will shoot you dead. So yeah, we were right in the middle of it probably stupidly. Ming family patriarch Ming Xue Chang. I got it right that time. Later kills himself in custody. His son, a leader in the Burmese hunter aligned Kokang border guard force was also executed as part of this group of 11 people. According to one report, quote. When asked about the executions on Thursday, a spokesperson for China's Foreign Ministry said Beijing would continue to intensify efforts to eradicate the scourge of gambling and fraud. So yeah, this is interesting for three reasons in my opinion. I mean four if you include the interest in 11 people being lined up and shot by an authoritarian regime. Yeah.
- [39:00]
A
Are you, you know, you do a lot of work for the China Wire, like a lot of reporting on China. Are you kind of becoming a Chinese Chinese like a China expert these days?
- [39:10]
B
Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, I'm kind of, I'm working on a bunch more stuff in Latin America as well. So I like to think I'm across a lot of this stuff But I, I didn't know that they were going to actually.
- [39:22]
A
Chinese organized crime expert, dude.
- [39:24]
B
Yeah. And actually we're going to do a show on the Green Gang in Shanghai soon, which is utterly fascinating. Oh yeah, real proper proto triad stuff. Like tune into that episode, it's going to be great. But this is really interesting. Right? So the first of these reasons I think it's interesting for is that China is properly showing that it's willing to take lethal action on folks playing a key role in this giant scam industry. It's worth like, no one really knows how much it's worth, but it's definitely worth hundreds of billions of dollars. I did some stuff on the 2nd, the December raid on KK part 2. I think we mentioned that in a previous show as well. And the second thing I'm interested in is that it's willing to literally execute people who are either close to or working directly with the military hunter in Myanmar. So this is kind of more of a political point, but it's all, I mean it's all wrapped up in the same stuff in Myanmar. Like China calls the shots there. Right. And what would the country sham election drawing to a close? These, I would say that these executions are probably Beijing reminding the Burmese army, the tapador and its proxies that they can't just do everything with impunity. Right? They're bombing civilians, they're building scam centers, shipping huge quantities of methamphetamine. But I think China wants them to know that they are not invincible. I mean the war, they can do anything, but they've got all the guns and all the pills. And thirdly, I think China is now actively trying to nab and kill these guys, which shows that these organized criminals, the ones likely dispatched to cause chaos by the Communist Party, they know where all the bodies are buried. Like remember what I was saying about the Prince Groom, they know which people's army generals are skimming off which project and so on and so forth. And you might have seen in the news Xi Jinping on this fresh purge of his military. I think this all plays into it, the crime and the scams and the drugs and the corruption. So yeah, if you want top level geopolitics with organized crime, there it is. You're welcome. Also invest in tin exploration. Yeah, that's my, that's my final.
- [41:25]
A
Is that your, is that your next tip?
- [41:27]
B
That's, that's a big tip. I, I would say that one stock that I've invested has gone up 200 since I got it. So it's now, it's now 2 cents.
- [41:34]
A
My graphite stop has gone up, gone up like 50. But the other one, the other Australian mining stock went down like 45. Now it's only down 25. But this actually is. It's an investment advice, but from morons. So be.
- [41:48]
B
That's incredibly popular, though.
- [41:52]
A
Yeah, that's true. That is a big market. Okay. Another story I just found really interesting. The New York Post has an article about one of the world's most dangerous men being captured in Iraq. Dangerous gangster, but that is according to Iraqi and Australian law enforcement. The man is exiled underworld kingpin Kazem Hamad. Hamad is Iraqi Australian. He had been involved with Melbourne's tobacco wars. Did we do anything on that? Do you know about that?
- [42:15]
B
I do know a little bit about it, yeah. It's like, it's like the base level that powers loads of the criminal families, like the Lebanese criminal families mostly, I guess. Wait, is this guy ethnic Lebanese or ethnic Kurdish or something like that? I think a lot of them are.
- [42:31]
A
I think he's. I think he's Iraqi, but he could.
- [42:34]
B
Be, he could be Kurdish maybe.
- [42:35]
A
I don't know. I'm not sure what that could be.
- [42:37]
B
Could be. I think bootleg tobacco is the thing that kind of like drives a lot of the front. A lot of the front shops.
- [42:45]
A
Yeah, this drug stuff, it's wild. Billions. I mean, obviously we've talked a lot about how smuggling tobacco has always been a tried and true method for organized crime. Not so much, I feel like in, in Western countries in recent years, although you do have it happening for like Indian reservations in New York and, and stuff like that. But it's not billions. Billion dollar industry, which apparently it is in Australia because the taxes are, are so high, but pretty wild. So Hamad himself, he was born in Iraq, comes to Australia in the late 90s, gets in trouble with the law pretty quickly, soon moves into heroin trafficking. But after one of his rings gets broken up, he realizes a smart place in cigarettes, right? Very old school. Like a Napoli gangster in the 80s. It's kind of like the, the Chappelle show thing, right? About how like people still do steal Carcerios, people still do make millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars. Smuggling cigarettes to be taxes. Australia apparently has really jacked up taxes. He's able to source them super cheap. I read as low as $1 a pack in Australia. They go for like 25 Australian dollars. Does that sound accurate to you?
- [43:46]
B
I think it's even more. I think it's like 30, 35 bucks. It's insane. Jesus.
- [43:51]
A
Some healthy margins.
- [43:53]
B
Yeah. I want to get in touch with.
- [43:54]
A
Him, but of course. Yeah, yeah, seriously. But of course, he's not the only one with the plan. And the way to win a proper business war is what, Sean? That's right. Arson, firebombing the hell out of your competitions, which is what he does, him and his crew. And this is. This has been, like, a thing the last couple years, too. This isn't just, like, a thing that happened and went away. We're talking hundreds of arson attacks on tobacco shops, extortions, plays, kidnapping, assaults, bunch of murders. He eventually gets locked up in Australia. I think that was, like, in actually 2015. He's held for years. It might have actually been arrested for. For the heroin charge. It's heroin and the tobacco wars. Held for years before he gets deported to Iraq in 2023, though, he keeps control of the market. And this goes back to our recent episode about the Swedish gangsters that were hired out by the Iranians, the irgc, to attack Jewish and Israeli sites. Australian intelligence believe that Hamad played a role in the arson attack against a synagogue in Australia in December of 2024. Hired and paid for by the IRGC. That is still under investigation. Apparently, though, he was also shipping drugs into Australia and into Iraq. So surprisingly to me, at least, when the Australians requested his arrest, Iraqi law enforcement complied, and he's now in Iraqi custody with extra extradition proceedings happening to send him back to Australia, which is really interesting. Like, to deport a guy and then two years later be like, all right, send him back. We've got more crimes to. To charge him with. But, yeah, I mean, it's pretty. It might be worth a full episode, too. I'm gonna look.
- [45:24]
B
Yeah, man, that's. That's super interesting. And I did not know about that. I'm looking at. I want to look into the stuff in Buenos Aires when I get there, because the irgc, I think they also paid gangsters to, like, firebomb a Jewish center in the. In the 90s, was it. It was, like, a real major event.
- [45:40]
A
But that was Hezbollah. That was Hezbollah. That was a firebombing thing. They killed, like, you know, dozens of people.
- [45:47]
B
Yeah, it was a huge terror attack.
- [45:49]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hezbollah in Latin America and a very controversial trial and. And all sorts of stuff.
- [45:56]
B
Yeah. All right, let's. Let's. Let's get away from gigantic terror attacks and do a little. Is it a silly one? I don't know if it's A silly one. I don't know. It's a very, very deeply British story. It's kind of. And finally, when the drugs. When the drugs most elderly Brits take are insulin, Tramadol and Rampuril. Is that just me? One pensioner from Wigan near Manchester used the proceeds from winning lottery ticket to do what everyone really wants to do with their lottery ticket, which is build a 400 million dollar empire out of his cottage. A drug empire, not like a pie empire or a sort of, yeah, jacket potato empire. 65 year old John Eric Spilby used the 2010 windfall to buy a counterfeit Diazepam factory in the stables near his home, building an illicit business alongside his son and two associates that will be dubbed WhatsApp for criminals by cops. And here's London's LBC quote. Spilby went on to grow his empire using his son and two associates, building a second drug factory in Salford to flood the streets with unregulated, unlicensed and unchecked drugs. Caught her. Guys like Manchester going back to the 90s is great. the height of his powers, Spilby boasted that US tech billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos best watched their backs. But as sales of counterfeit drugs soared, so did the number of drug related deaths in the area, which desperate. With desperate users playing Russian roulette with their lives. All right, that bit's not so fun. When police eventually raid one of Spilby's hired vans, they discover over $6 million worth of pills and then they find pill presses, cash and firearms, a bunch of other properties. Of his sentencing, Spilby and his son John. A judge says, quote, despite your lottery win, you continue to live your life of crime beyond what would be a normal retirement age. Which actually I thought, oh, I'll mention that quote in the, in the, in the show, but it's incredibly boring quote, isn't it? It just says, despite winning lottery you did. Crime folks should check out the story because it has a few more details. He's like, he's not just like a guy, he's not breaking bad. This. He was running a full cartel. But this is another spill out of the Encro chat hack, which I feel like is never gonna end. It's nuts.
- [48:11]
A
Wow, they're still getting stuff.
- [48:13]
B
Yeah. I think Ed Caesar was saying on the show we did about, about Daniel Kinahan that there's like a backlog of thousands of cases coming out. So I mean, all you have to do is rock up at the Interpol headqu As a journalist, you've probably got 50,000 features to write for the rest of your life. The hack then led French authorities to French associates of Spillbe, which then leads to the Wigan bust, which lead to the arrest. I think this would actually make an awesome feature if British paper still did that kind of thing. But yeah, life doesn't end at 65, guys. You can build an empire. And the Brits haven't lost their spirit. No, it's all good. Hunky dory.
- [48:52]
A
There's still time for your dreams. Still time for your dreams, guys. Never give up. Yeah, I think that that about covers it right for this sort of low effort episode. But thanks for tuning in. Hopefully we didn't have a, we, we didn't have a cross country move. We'd be, we'd be banging them out. I think our next three episodes are going to be Ice Delight.
- [49:11]
B
Yeah, just good stuff.
- [49:13]
A
Good, good stuff. We've got them recorded. They're, they're ready to go. So thank you guys again for, for tuning in. Patreon.com podcast, Spotify, iTunes, Social media, do it. I don't know, dude. Okay, that's it. We're good.
- [49:45]
B
Sam. Sa.