Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Deep Dive is an investigative podcast from the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. It features stories and research from the global criminal underworld, with episodes ranging from paramilitary organized crime cartels to the takedown of encrypted communication networks. The show also examines how complex corporate structures are used to hide illicit activity and how organized crime infiltrates industries such as recycling. Each episode draws on the Global Initiative's wide-ranging investigations and research into transnational organized crime.
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Dethroning BigBoss: The Fall of Archetyp | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Inspired by the ethos of Silk Road and the lifespans of Agora and Dream Market, a new player emerged from the shadows of Tor in 2020: Archetyp. Built on promises of security, usability, and “ethical” standards, the marketplace steadily grew while rivals rose and fell. By 2025 it served ≈ 600 000 users, ≈ 3 000 vendors, and had moved&
Living Together: The Gangs of Haiti - Part 3: "Wake Up! The Bandits Are Coming!" | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Part 3 - "Wake Up! The Bandits Are Coming!"At the end of March this year, officers from the Kenyan-led Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) responded to a request for assistance when an armoured Haitian National Police vehicle became stuck in a ditch near Pont-Sondé in Artibonite. The ditch was believed to have been dug by a local gang.As the MSS officers arrived to help, they were ambushe
Living Together: The Gangs of Haiti - Part 2: Fighting Back | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Part 2 - 'Fighting Back'In 2022, a video emerged of an alleged senior gang member, Zo Pwason, who had been caught by an armed group of Haitian citizens, led by Commissioner Jean-Ernest Muscadin. Zo Pwason was allegedly a senior member of the 5 Segond gang. He was executed by the armed group.Muscadin declared that “As long as I am government commissioner, the city of Miragoâne will remain a cemeter
Living Together: The Gangs of Haiti - Part 1: The Death of a President | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Part 1 - "The Death of a President"In July 2021, the President of Haiti, Jovenel Moïse, was assassinated as he slept at home by a band of mercenaries. His murder sparked a wave of violent protests and a period of unprecedented crisis in the small Caribbean nation that the country has still yet to address nearly four years later.For a long time, violent gangs were used by politicians to win electio
Drugs, Dead Drops and the Battle Over Russian Darknet Markets | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
If you were to walk around a Russian city, you might not realise it but hundreds of small packages of drugs, could be just below the surface, buried in the ground, or maybe attached to the back of a nearby drainpipe with magnets, or hidden inside a hole in a wall. These little "treasures" have been ordered online from a vendor operating on a darknet platform and then hidden by couriers known as 'K
Colombia & Total Peace: Part 2: Buenaventura – “The Pact for Life” | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Buenaventura – “The Pact for Life”Buenaventura has long been an important node in international illicit markets, particularly cocaine trafficking due to its port. Gangs, paramilitaries and organized criminal networks have all looked to gain a foothold here. The resulting violence has meant the city has seen many murders, and even more disappearances, with terrifying tales emanating from the so-cal
Colombia & Total Peace: Part 1 - "The ELN - The Easy Win" | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Colombia is a country that has been racked by conflict for around 60 years - multiple armed groups and organized crime have waged war against each other and the state.In 2016, after nearly seven years of negotiations, the FARC demobilized, creating a power vacuum that other groups, such as the National Liberation Army (ELN), Clan del Golfo, and FARC dissidents, quickly filled. Despite the FARC's e
Mohamed Amra and the gangs of Marseille | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
In May 2024, a prison van was attacked at a highway toll in Normandy, France. In dramatic footage shared on social media, a black SUV, driving the wrong direction, rammed into the prison van just as it went through the barriers. Then gunmen, dressed head-to-toe in black and armed with Kalashnikov rifles got out and started shooting at the van, killing two prison officers.They opened the van and fr
The Long Tail: Cross-Channel Migrant Smuggling (France to the UK) | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
On the 1st May 2024, 711 migrants successfully crossed the Channel between France and the UK in small boats. This year is so far on track to see the highest number of crossings on record.This highly industrialised illicit industry estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of Euros, has seen the coast of northern France demarcated between competing gangs from a specific region of the Middle East,
LockBit: Is this the end? | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
LockBit, the world's largest ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) provider suffered a very public takedown by an international law enforcement task force, Operation Cronos.The ransomware behemoth quickly relaunched just days later. But in a world where trust is key, might the reputational damage be too great?This is the story of the rise of LockBit, its relationship with other infamous cybercriminal gro
Russia, War & Organized Crime | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Russian organized crime has a mythology attached to it - the brutal tattooed men of the Vory v Zakone. But those days are long in the past, rapid globalisation saw a new type of organized criminal take the reins in the Russian underworld, spreading their influence as criminal facilitators across the world. But the war in Ukraine has changed that. It's changed the relationship between organized cri
What is going on in Ecuador? | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
At the start of the year masked gunman burst into a television studio in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The cameras were live and the entire event was broadcast. The video shows gang members shouting at staff, pushing them to the ground, threatening them with guns and explosives. These pictures subsequently travelled around the world.But this event was just one in a series to hit Ecuador in a short space of
Monitoring: Ovidio Guzmán and the Kingpin Strategy | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
'The King is dead, long live the King!'In September 2023, Ovidio Guzmán López, the son of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzmán, stood in a courtroom as a series of charges were laid out, including his alleged role as a leader of the Sinaloa Cartel.There is a long list of cartel and organized crime leaders over the past few decades who have been targeted through what become known as the 'Kingpin Strategy'. Th
Illicit Financial Flows in the Western Balkans | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
“If you can do it without consequences, then you should do it”.What are illicit Financial Flows, or IFFs? And why do they matter? Every illicit market, from drug trafficking, people smuggling, the illegal wildlife trade, arms trafficking etc. all are connected to IFFs. IFFs are about the movement of money across borders that is illegal in some way.The money could be from a criminal act, like corr
Monitoring: A Month of Drug Seizures | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
In September 2023, there were four large cocaine seizures in and around the Atlantic Ocean - off the coast of Ireland, West Africa, Brazil, and Cape Verde. The flows of cocaine that traverse the Atlantic travel mainly by sea, from the huge bulk carriers to small fishing vessels or sailing boats. Much of this illicit drug ends in the cocaine markets of Europe.In this episode of Deep Dive: Monitorin
“They don’t ******* withdraw it” - Scam Call Centres in Ukraine | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Scam call centres are a blight on the lives of anyone unfortunate enough to have any dealings with them. They come to you with promises of a short cut to wealth, to fix a non-existent issue with your computer, claiming to be from a charity, threatening you with arrest for unpaid taxes.There are 70 million of these phone calls worldwide every day and they generate billions of dollars each year. Or
Colombia: In the face of crime and violence | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
For over half a century armed groups in Colombia have battled one another and the state across the country. The FARC, ELN, AUC, AGC, and the infamous drug cartels, have committed untold atrocities on everyday Colombians. These groups use violence to control the local population and to assert territorial control over illicit drug production and trafficking routes.This episode is about the people wh
The Rise and Fall of the Conti Ransomware Group | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
For around two years the Conti ransomware group rampaged across the internet. They attacked hospitals, educational institutions, businesses, governments, and many more, raking in hundreds of millions of dollars in ransomware payments. Business was booming for the cybercriminals. At least it was until the Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Conti leade
“Death Can Wait”: Drugs on the Frontline in Ukraine | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Throughout history soldiers have used drugs, sometimes to fight better or to stay alert, or perhaps to help cope with the extreme psychological situation and trauma they are faced with. The current conflict in Ukraine is no different. Concerns around this led to the Ukrainian parliament passing a new law that authorizes random drug and alcohol tests on soldiers. Organized crime is nothing if not a
P2 - The Murder of Ahmed Divela | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Part 2: "The truth will triumph".The description of Ahmed's murder showed that the killers were professionals, trained in the use of firearms. But despite the crowds that witnessed the killing, no one has ever been prosecuted for the crime.Since the assassination of Ahmed, press freedom in Ghana has suffered. He is one of a number that have been attacked, harassed and arrested over the last few ye
P1 - The Murder of Ahmed Divela | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Part 1: "Ahmed was no coward".On World Press Freedom Day (3rd May) 2018, the Ghanaian President, Nana Akufo-Addo, took to the stage in Accra to deliver a speech on press freedom. Ghana, had long been a beacon for press freedom and was selected to host the celebrations.Just a few weeks later, TigerEye PI, the world famous undercover investigative unit led by Anas Aremeyaw Anas released their latest
P2 - The Wagner Group in Sudan | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Part 2: “It’s the worst kept secret in Sudan”.In 2019, the Dossier Centre in London, shared some leaked internal documents from the private military company, the Wagner Group. The documents showed that Wagner had identified several countries they wanted to target for future operations. What was clear is that they often targeted countries with weakened autocratic government, seeking support against
P1 - The Wagner Group in Sudan | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Part 1: “Who are these guys and what are they doing here?”In late February 2022, Airport workers in Khartoum International Airport in Sudan are stood glued to television screens, watching Russian tanks entering the outskirts of Kyiv in Ukraine. But just outside on the runway, a Russian cargo plane laden with cookies was about to take off, heading to Latakia on the coast of Syri
The Drug Markets of East and Southern Africa | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Africa is often the forgotten continent for things like drug trafficking, but just look around the news, the African continent plays a critical role in the global illicit drug market – and its growing – And no more so than in East and Southern Africa. As global trade has exploded, African organized criminal networks have established relationships with other criminal organizations around the world
How to Respond to Environmental Crime | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
What does the term 'Environmental Crime' mean to you? Probably something like elephant or rhino poaching. Perhaps the plight of the pangolin, the adorable little armoured mammal, often sighted as the "most trafficked animal in the world". But it is so much more than that - from the illegal wildlife trade to illicit plastic waste, and from illegal mining to timber trafficking.The spotlight on envir
P4 - 'Ndrangheta - "The Cocaine Gateway" | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
P4 - 'Ndrangheta - "The Cocaine Gateway"The port of Gioia Tauro in Calabria has long been considered one of the main cocaine gateways into Europe. In this episode we're going to tell the story of the 'ndrangheta and this port. How its completion in the 1990s coincided with the rise of the 'ndrangheta, were certain clans control this important node of the international cocaine market.Our guest Anna
P3 - 'Ndrangheta - Canada: "The Chamber of Control" | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Part 3 - "The Chamber of Control"Woodbridge, Vaughan, Greater Toronto Area, 2014. A man called Carmine Verduci was gunned down outside a sports café. Over the coming days Italian and Canadian law enforcement alleged that Verduci, born in Calabria, was a connecting bridge between 'ndrangheta clans in the Locride area of Calabria and the Greater Toronto Area (GTA). He was reported to be a senior mem
P2 - 'Ndrangheta - "'Ndrangheta Royalty Down Under" | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Part 2 - "ndrangheta Royalty Down Under"In 2007, the Australian Federal Police received a tipoff about a container arriving at the Port of Melbourne. The container had come from Italy and was full of tins of tomatoes, inside those tins was the largest ecstasy bust in the world at that time. The AFP had discovered an international drug trafficking criminal syndicate at work. At the centre of this w
P1 - 'Ndrangheta - "The Madonna of the Mountain" | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Part 1 - "The Madonna of the Mountain"In Calabria, southern Italy there is a mountain massif called Aspromonte, "harsh mountain". The villages that hug the mountain slopes, places like San Luca, Natile and Platì are the birthplaces of the clans that make up what is collectively known as ‘Ndrangheta – one of the most powerful organized criminal syndicates in the world. From these humble beginnings
P2 - Killing the Power of the Pen: Violence against journalists in Mexico | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Part 2 - "I fear for my life"In 2019, journalist Lourdes Maldonado rose from her seat to speak to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador at a press conference - it was during this moment she said "I fear for my life" due to a long running legal dispute. Three years later, and just days after that case had been ruled in her favour, she was gunned down outside her home.Officials blamed a local cartel
P1 - Killing the Power of the Pen: Violence against journalists in Mexico | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Part 1 - "It’s a message of terror, to stop asking questions"Mexico is known as one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist on the planet, and 2022 is on record to be the deadliest yet. José Luis Gamboa Arenas, a journalist from Veracruz became the first to be killed this year, the body of Luis Enrique Ramírez Ramos, a Sinaloan journalist was found in Culiacán on May 5th taking to total to
"You beat me" - Part 3: Clan del Golfo: The Fall of Otoniel | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
As the net begins to close on Otoniel, life on the run is hard. Deep in the jungles of Úraba, he never stays in a single place for more than two nights, he no longer communicates using phones and he stays away from urban centres for fear of capture. But he still runs the largest organized criminal group in Colombia.One by one, other senior members of Clan del Golfo are picked off. But Otoniel cont
"Don't text or call me" - Part 2: Clan del Golfo: The Fall of Otoniel | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
At the end of part 1, Otoniel we left him in sole charge of Clan del Golfo, the biggest organized crime group in Colombia.In part 2 "Don't text or call me", we look through the eyes of a man who goes by the alias "Messi", who was involved in cocaine trafficking and money laundering for Clan del Golfo. We'll see how he used real-estate, cars, watches, front companies and government contracts to cle
"He's an animal" - Part 1: Clan del Golfo: The Fall of Otoniel | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
In late 2021, the leader of Clan del Golfo (The Urabeños) Dairo Antonio Úsuga, aka "Otoniel", was captured by the Colombian police. President Iván Duque said that the arrest was only matched by the fall of Pablo Escobar in the 1990s.Over the course of two episodes we look at the birth of Clan del Golfo out of the ashes of the right-wing paramilitary movement in Colombia. We'll explore their involv
Killing in Silence: The Global Assassination Monitor | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
An assassination is like a stone being dropped into the middle of a still pond – the splash is the violent act itself – the ripples are the repercussions, that spread far and wide – fear, intimidation, silencing, corruption, erosion of trust, environmental damage, illicit firearms, impunity and retaliation – after all, violence begets violence – the damage to society is far-reaching, way beyond th
Plastics for Profit | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
In this episode we look at the criminal involvement in the plastic waste industry.The lucrative global market in plastic waste is expected to be reach over $50 billion US Dollars by 2022. From Mafia groups to poly-crime networks, the temptation for organised criminal groups and bad actors to get a slice of this market is too hard to resist - and so corners are cut, laws are ignored, and irreversi
Crossing the Line: India and Myanmar | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
In this episode we tell the story of a region, the "Seven Sisters", otherwise known as the Indian Northeast and one town in particular, Moreh, and the relationship with neighbouring Myanmar.Moreh sits just on the Indian side of the border and has become a hub for multiple illicit flows that pass through - timber, gold, firearms, wildlife, counterfeits, people, and illicit drugs.The Indian Northeas
Fishy Business | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
This is a story of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, complex corporate structures, human trafficking, arms smuggling, corruption and the capture of state institutions.In this collaborative episode with Africa and the Global Illicit Economy, we travel to the rich fishing grounds off Puntland in Somalia and a fleet of vessels known as the "Somali 7", before looking into a politicall
Guinea-Bissau Part 2: Pau de Sangue (Blood Timber) | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
In the wake of the 2012 'Cocaine Coup' in Guinea-Bissau the illegal logging trade exploded, largely driven by huge demand for rosewood logs in China - a species protected under international law.By 2014, such was the extent of this illicit trade, civil society pressured the new government to introduce a five-year moratorium on timber exports. Now, in 2021, as the government seems poised to lift th
Cabo Delgado: Africa’s Forgotten Insurgency | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
On March 24th 2021, Islamist insurgents carried out an attack on the coastal town of Palma in the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado. The days of fighting, looting, massacres, private military contractors, and dramatic rescues led to thousands more people fleeing to escape the violence.The attack took place just a few kilometres from Total’s $20 billion-dollar natural gas project on the
Guinea-Bissau Part 1: Civil Society and Illicit Markets | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
A look at how a self-interested political and military elite used profits from illicit markets to fuel their own ambitions at the expense of the wider population. This is a story of corruption, dirty money, cocaine and illegal logging.This is Part one of a two-part special on Guinea-Bissau, the small West African nation. In this episode we will chart the course of Guinea-Bissau from Independence
The Fall of EncroChat | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
In June 2020, EncroChat users received a flurry of panicked messages from the company claiming its encrypted network had been hacked by "government entities". What unravelled was one of the biggest hacks by law enforcement in history, who claimed many of its users are alleged organized criminals in Europe.The hack was said to have revealed a litany of criminal behaviour - drug deals and shipm
Child Sexual Abuse Material, COVID and Technology | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
With more people working from home than ever before due to the pandemic,. But another parallel pandemic is taking place, that of online child sexual abuse material which has taken a sharp rise around the world.In this podcast, we’re discussing Child Online Sexual Abuse (CSAM), COVID and technology.Presenter(s): Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo and Jack Meegan-Vickers.Speakers:Fernando Ruiz, Head of
Under the Shadow: Illicit Economies in Iran | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
In this podcast, Jack is looking at the latest Global Initative Against Transnational Organized Crime report called 'Under the Shadow: Illicit Economies in Iran', which looks at how the illicit economy has become intertwined within the licit economy of the Iranian State.SpeakersAlexander Soderholm, an international drug policy field researcher with a focus on Iran and the Middle East.Katherin
Extortion in the Northern Triangle | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
In the Northern Triangle countries of Central America - Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, extortion is so pervasive that it has been called “A way of life”.The growth in extortion in the region was defined by the expansion of street gangs MS13 and Barrio 18. They have a stranglehold on the countries in which they operate, extorting rich and poor and even international corporations.The revenue f
Transnational Tentacles | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Transnational Tentacles: Global Hotspots of Balkan Organized Crime.The Western Balkans is well understood now as an important transit point for the smuggling of drugs, arms and people. But what has been less understood is how over the past few decades, criminal groups within the Western Balkans region and the global diaspora have carved out a place within the very highest echelons of the criminal
Illegal Logging & Organized Crime in Chihuahua, Mexico | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
People and Forests at Risk: Organized Crime, trafficking in persons and deforestation in Chihuahua, Mexico.The highland ranges of the Sierra Madre are cool and temperate forests – with several species of Oak, conifers and a number of pines, and logging is permitted here. But excessive legal and illegal logging is contributing to rapid deforestation. Organized criminal groups have established their
Insurgency and Illicit trade in Northern Mozambique | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
How will the ongoing violent Islamist insurgency in the Cabo Delgado region of Northern Mozambique overlap with the organized criminal networks that operate in the area. How has the corruption within the Mozambican state contributed to the growth of the insurgency?Presenter: Lindy MtonganaGuests:Professor Adriano Nuvunga, Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development and a leading civil soc
Destruction or Theft? | Deep Dive: Exploring Organized Crime
Destruction or Theft? Between 2014 and 2017, the Islamic State group occupied territory in Iraq. At it's height it controlled almost a third of the country and over 4,500 historical sites.Alongside the dramatic pictures of the destruction of artefacts and irreplaceable ancient sites like Nimrud, others have claimed that this destruction was largely carried out to conceal extensive looting of valua
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