Becoming the Chechen Mafia: Ancient Outlaws, Soviet Scabs and a British KGB Plot

In this episode we track the concept of the Chechen Mafia—not an easy thing to define—from ancient invasions and the creation of the "Abrek", or "outlaw-exile," through Soviet repression, Stalin's deportations and the "Scab War" of the feared Gulag Archipelago. The rise of a Communist blackmarket later allowed Chechens in Siberia and Kazakhstan to carve out their own illicit empires, outside of Russia's "Thieves World." These newfound gangsters coalesced with an independence movement, whose bloodshed would reach all the way to central London—at the scene of a brutal, 1993 double-murder. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Om Podcasten

Underworld exposes the secret world of transnational criminal networks that have flourished since there were banks to bust, drugs to smuggle, and scams to run. Journalists Danny Gold and Sean Williams bring their experience reporting on dangerous people and organizations to take listeners on a global tour of mobsters, warlords and crooks - from Brooklyn to Beijing, from the streets to the boardrooms - and everywhere in between. Underworld is a show about heroes, villains, and the barely visible mafias that affect all our lives, whether we know it or not.