From the ashes of Los Zetas rose the Cartel del Noreste or Northeast Cartel, a brutal splinter group led by the infamous Treviño Morales family and headquartered in the blood-soaked border city of Nuevo Laredo. Known for their military tactics, narco-tanks, and paramilitary wing “Tropa del Infierno” aka the Hell Troop, CDN wages war not only against rivals but against the Mexican state itself.

This episode dives into their origins, their iron grip on smuggling routes, and the savage methods they use to maintain power. From public executions to armored convoys that look straight out of Mad Max, CDN represents the next evolution of cartel warfare. If you want to understand how modern Mexican cartels have evolved, start here.

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In the 1980's, Rayful Edmond rose to infamy as Washington D.C.’s most notorious crack kingpin, building a multimillion-dollar empire by the age of 19. At the height of his reign, D.C. became the murder capital of America, with crack cocaine fueling a deadly wave of violence and addiction. Edmond's lavish lifestyle and ruthless control of the streets made him a legend, and a target. He was arrested and imprisoned for life before the age of 25, but his story didn’t end behind bars.

In prison, Edmond secretly partnered with the sons of Colombian drug queenpin Griselda Blanco, helping move even more cocaine into the U.S. through direct Medellín Cartel connections. His continued trafficking from prison shocked authorities and cemented his place as one of America's most infamous drug lords.

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Abe Saffron rose from wartime wheeler-dealing to become the king of Sydney’s underworld, a man whose appetite for sex, money and scandal was unmatched by any other Aussie gangster in the swinging Sixties. Saffron paid everybody off, brought Sinatra to Sydney, and hosted Sinatra. He was, in the words of one reporter, “Mr Sin”.

But as Saffron’s empire of vice grew, so did the list of those desperate to bring him down — including his own henchmen. And as the Seventies dawned, Saffron would be embroiled in two fatal scandals that stained his reputation forever: one a tragic fairground fire, the other a kidnapping and murder that shocked the nation.

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Ibrahim Akasha was the kingpin of East Africa’s heroin highway, setting up a massive tracking empire that stretched from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran to Kenya, South Africa and Europe.

When he was gunned down in 2000, his sons stepped into the void, hungrier and even more violent...but also, more sloppy. They struck deals with Pakistani mobsters and Colombian cartels, turning Kenya’s ports into gateways for global dope. But their empire crumbled in a DEA sting straight out of a Hollywood script.

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For centuries, brigands, gangsters and street toughs ruled the island of Java so thoroughly that they were woven into local myths. But in the 20th century, when the world bounded towards war, mob bosses in Jakarta spotted a chance to turn underworld kudos into an independent nation.

When the war ended, and Indonesia dove into chaos, a handful of kingpins would emerge as the architects of a new, modern state. But the madness was only just beginning.

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Amado Carrillo Fuentes was one of the most powerful drug traffickers of the 1990s, moving hundreds of tons of cocaine and amassing billions while forging deep ties with Colombian cartels and corrupt Mexican officials. At the height of his power, he controlled the Juárez Cartel and operated a fleet of private jets, outpacing rivals and law enforcement alike.

His influence stretched from Mexico to South America and the U.S., making him a near-mythic figure in the drug world—until his sudden death during a secret plastic surgery left more questions than answers.

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In 1987, Argentine soccer star Diego Maradona was on top of the world. He’d just handed his nation a World Cup, and his club side Napoli its first league title in over 60 years.

But Maradona’s hard-partying lifestyle and underworld friends would soon take their toll - and before long, the world’s greatest sportsman was in a tangled web of vice, drugs and match-fixing that would haunt him until his dying days.

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The 1990's in Moscow were the glory days of Russian organized crime. Emerging out of the downfall of communism, wannabe oligarchs and gangsters turned the country into a free-for-all as they fought for control. And no where, is more deadly than Moscow. In 1992, there was 2,500 murders in Moscow alone.

There’s a lot of action, and everyone wants a piece of that action. Problem is, sometimes two people wanted a piece of that same action. In Moscow, in 1993, they didn't go to the courts. They went to the hired killers.  And the most infamous of those hitman was Alexander Solonik.

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When cops on the English coast busted a bid to bring in a huge shipment of cocaine in 2020, it sent shockwaves through the underworld hundreds of miles north in Scotland, where the drugs were destined for, and reignited a bitter feud between the Lyons and Daniel crime families that had simmered for almost two decades.

Today, with a third, international gang entering the fray, the feud has spilled into all-out war, with residents of Glasgow and Edinburgh watching in horror as homes burn and bodies drop. But how did it all begin — and where will the violence end?

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When cops arrested a group of masked, black-robed protesters at a California campsite in 2019, most folks thoughts they’d caught some eccentric but harmless members of the Bay Area’s niche rationalist movement. But over the next few years the group would rally around its charismatic leader, Ziz LaSota, tearing across North America on a rampage of robbery and murder.

But even today, with LaSota in prison and several members dead, nobody’s quite sure what the Zizians are: a cult? A gang? Or just the most extreme Silicon Valley shitposters in history? We speak to journalist and author Evan Ratliff, who reported the Zizians for WIRED Magazine, to find out more — plus some bonus chat on Evan’s AI scam-led podcast “Shell Game”.

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