Digital Hucksters, Crypto Scams and the Internet’s “Enshittification” with Cory Doctorow
From Ponzi schemes to shitcoins, phishing scams and Nigerian princes, we’re living in a golden age of online crime. But hasn’t it always been this way? Cory Doctorow’s latest novel “The Bezzle” dives ...
19 Mar 202457min
The Most Successful American Mobster EVER: Tony Accardo
Tony "Joe Batters" Accardo aka the Big Tuna (!) was one of the most powerful Mob Bosses that the American Mafia has ever seen, sitting atop the brutal Chicago Outfit for 40 years. From being an errand...
12 Mar 202454min
Listen Now: Varnamtown Episode 1
Two years ago, Kyle MacLachlan, the star of Twin Peaks, called investigative journalist Joshua Davis with a strange story. Kyle had heard a rumor that Pablo Escobar did a deal in the early 1980s with ...
8 Mar 20244min
The Bamboo Union Triads, Taiwan's White Wolf Godfather, and a Murdered Reporter in SF
When Chinese-American reporter Henry Liu was gunned down in his Daly City garage in 1984, it brought the Bamboo Union, Taiwan’s most powerful Triad, to global attention. But while the killing frayed t...
5 Mar 202440min
The Yakuza Boss Caught Selling Burmese Nuclear Material to Iranian Generals (Sort Of)
You may have seen the news last week, about a Yakuza boss caught in Bangkok trying to sell nuclear material to a fake Iranian general. Takeshi Ebisawa and a group of co-conspirators are behind bars, a...
27 Feb 202444min
She Hunted Down the Zetas Cartel Members Who Killed Her Daughter
When members of the fearsome and brutal Zetas cartel kidnapped her daughter, Miriam Rodriguez did what they asked and paid the ransom. But it wasn't enough, and she never saw her daughter again. Fed u...
20 Feb 202445min
From Helicopter Prison Breaks to Missing Millions: The French Bank Robbers Who Became Heroes
On the face of it, Toni Musulin and Redoine Faïd couldn’t be more different: one a quiet, skinflint armored vehicle driver, the other a flamboyant gang leader who went on the lam in Tel Aviv disguised...
13 Feb 202441min
The Headhunting Burmese Tribe Running the World's Biggest Cartel: The Wa w/ Patrick Winn
The Wa tribe, an indigenous tribe residing in the mountainous Burma China borderlands, has long had a reputation as a people not to be trifled with. And yes, they were actually headhunters, well into ...
6 Feb 20241h 3min
