Curated playlist
Organized crime groups in the United States
- American MafiaJoe Valachi killed a fellow inmate with a pipe in 1962. He mistook the man for a Mafia hit man.
- Sicilian MafiaThe Sicilian Mafia, an Italian criminal society born on the island of Sicily and also called Cosa Nostra, once made a young man juggle a burning saint. In 1976, a man named Giovanni Brusca was invited to what was called a banquet at a…
- Los ZetasLos Zetas took its name from a radio call sign. Z1 belonged to Arturo Guzmán Decena, the group's first commander, who had carried that code in the Federal Judicial Police, where it was given to high-ranking officers. In Spanish the name…
- Gulf CartelThe Gulf Cartel once moved tons of cocaine into the United States aboard government buses. A captured trafficker named Juan Antonio Ortiz described the scheme. Between 1986 and 1990, he said, the buses belonged to the United States…
- Russian mafiaThe Russian mafia, known in Russian as bratva, stepped into the spotlight in May 1995, when Czech police raided the U Holubu restaurant in Anděl, a neighborhood of Prague. Semion Mogilevich had gathered Russian mafia bosses there for a…
- Cali CartelBetween 1993 and 1995, the Cali Cartel was cited as controlling over 80% of the world's cocaine market. Its home was southern Colombia, around the city of Cali and the Valle del Cauca. By the mid-1990s its leaders presided over a criminal…
- Pagan's Motorcycle ClubThe Pagan's Motorcycle Club wears a giant from Norse myth on its back. The giant is Surtr, a fire-giant, shown sitting on a burning world and wielding a sword of flame. Beneath him, the club's name appears in red, white and blue. The…
- Medellín CartelThe Medellín Cartel, a loose coalition of Colombian drug trafficking organizations, owed part of its American reach to a conversation between two bunkmates in Connecticut. George Jung was serving time at the Federal Correctional…
- Yamaguchi-gumiThe Sixth Yamaguchi-gumi is the largest yakuza organization in Japan, and it takes its name from a founder called Harukichi Yamaguchi. Its roots lie in a loose labor union for dockworkers in Kobe, formed before the Second World War. Today…
- Sinaloa CartelThe Sinaloa Cartel lost two of its senior figures on the 25th of July 2024, when United States authorities arrested Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada and Joaquín Guzmán López in El Paso, Texas. Guzmán López is a son of the better-known Joaquín "El…
- YakuzaThe yakuza, the members of Japan's organized crime syndicates, are named after a losing hand of cards. In the traditional game Oicho-Kabu, players try to draw three cards that add up to nine. A total of ten or more counts only by its…
- Irish mobThe Irish mob is not a single organization. It is a loose collection of crime groups, made up largely of ethnic Irish members, that have operated mainly in the United States since the early 19th century. Its earliest recognizable face was…
- 'NdranghetaThe 'Ndrangheta, a criminal syndicate from the Calabria region of Italy, carried a village feud to Germany on the 15th of August 2007. Six men were shot dead in front of an Italian restaurant in Duisburg. The killings belonged to a war…