History by the Numbers (2021) s01e04 Episode Script
Crime Bosses
1
(siren wailing)
- I know nothing
about crime bosses,
except for "The Godfather."
- When I think of a crime boss,
they just have that
absolute power, you know?
- Riches the likes of which
most of us will never see.
- Ruthless, determined.
- Ambition and charisma.
- Or you just have zero morals.
I feel like these
guys are way worse
than we make them
look in TV and film.
- [Narrator] Crime bosses,
and the underworld
organizations they command
(explosive booms)
have always been with us.
- As long as there have been
human beings interacting,
there's been organized crime.
- From the moment we wake up
to the moment we go to sleep,
we're in contact in various
ways with organized crime.
It's really
everywhere around us.
- Depending on the country,
between 10% to
40% of our economy
is controlled by
organized crime groups.
- [Narrator] And
the annual worth
of that black market economy
today is mind-blowing.
- $2.2 trillion.
- 2.2-
- 2.2-
- Trillion.
- Trillion.
- Trillion dollars.
- That's a lotta clams.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] This is the story
of five notorious crime bosses
who shaped the last
century of organized crime.
(upbeat music)
(rocket engines roaring)
(roulette ball rolling)
(pensive music)
What does it take to
become a crime boss,
one of the most exclusive
jobs in the world?
Some hide in the shadows.
Others crave the limelight.
(camera shutters snapping)
- Al Capone, he was the
classic mobster celebrity.
He's really the first
mobster to surface in America
who becomes a national name.
- [Narrator] And that's the
secret of Al Capone's success:
the ability to hide
in plain sight.
(melancholy music)
It's February 14th,
1929, Chicago.
It's a story you
may think you know.
Police line members
of the Bugs Moran gang
up against a wall.
- [Police Officer]
Come on, you mutts.
- [Narrator] It looks like
they're about to be arrested,
but this is not a police raid,
(guns shooting)
it's a gang land hit.
70 gunshots, seven dead men,
and pulling the
strings, Al Capone.
- Say hello to my little friend.
- Capone sends four
of his people dressed
as police officers
to raid George Moran.
This was his chief
rival, this Irish gang.
- He basically figured "I'll
wipe them all out in one shot,"
and he pulled it off.
I mean, that's like
the hit of hits.
- [Narrator] It's called the
St Valentine's day massacre.
You know who did it, the
police know who did it,
but Al Capone, the original
public enemy number one,
is never charged.
(dramatic music)
How does he get away with it?
His secret is the number 18.
(upbeat music)
When Al Capone first
arrives in Chicago
in 1920, at age 21,
he finds the perfect
place to build an empire.
- Chicago had a
thriving, illegal,
racketeering organized
crime industry.
- [Narrator] Most
important for Capone,
the 18th amendment
has just passed,
making the manufacturer and
sale of alcohol illegal.
It's the start of Prohibition.
- [Man] There'll be a lot
of drive throats in Chicago
after this night's work.
- If alcohol was illegal, I
would still drink every day.
That would not stop me.
That didn't stop
anyone back then.
- I'd be like right in there,
having the time of my life.
- I love booze.
I'm definitely making alcohol
or smuggling it in
from some place.
- Yeah, if somebody tells
me I have to do something,
it immediately makes
me wanna do it.
- If it's fun, I will do it.
- Prohibition was
like a bombshell.
What happened immediately
was an explosion
of illicit production
and selling of alcohol
across the country.
Capone recognizes immediately
that this is an opportunity.
- [Narrator] But he's
not the only one.
At the time,
Chicago has an estimated
25,000 active gang members.
(drums beating)
- So you have the Italians,
you had the Irish,
you had the Jewish gangs,
you had the Polish gangs,
the German gang,
and it created a vicious
climate of competition,
which essentially wreaks
havoc across Chicago.
- You know, guys are
rolling up with Tommy guns
and gunning in each other down
because they want
your territory.
(explosive booms)
- [Narrator] In 1924, the
Chicago suburb of Cicero
has 161 gambling dens,
123 saloons, and 22 brothels.
That's one illegal establishment
for every 200 people,
and Al Capone is maneuvering
his way to controlling it all.
- If you're his enemy,
you're in trouble
because his temper could go
from zero to 60 in a hot second.
If you crossed
him, you were done.
- [Narrator] As
Capone's star rises,
the 1929 stock market
crash throws America
into the Great Depression.
By 1930, almost half
a million people
in Chicago are unemployed.
- The beginning of the Great
Depression in the United States
really creates food
insecurity, housing insecurity.
There's a lot of
social instability.
- [Narrator] A new soup
kitchen mysteriously appears,
and hungry Chicagoans
start to line up.
- [Man] Who wants
the soup of the day?
- [Narrator] The kitchen
serves three hot meals a day
and doesn't ask any questions.
Neither do the
desperate patrons.
- [Man] Just loading free.
- [Narrator] Word spreads,
and the lineup grows.
Soon, they'll be serving
2200 people a day.
For many, it's the only thing
in between them and starvation.
- [Man] Well, my
compliments to the chef.
- [Narrator] And who is
the mysterious benefactor
feeding the city?
You guessed it, Al Capone.
- Al Capone was smart.
He'd open up soup kitchens,
he'd give to the poor.
He knew that it would
endear people to him.
- [Narrator] The PR
cost him $300 a day,
which sounds generous with
daily wages around $4.
Meanwhile, Capone, at times,
was making up to $15,000 a day.
If you live in Capone's
neighborhood during
the depression,
you would think he was a hero.
- Capone, while ruthless,
was also extraordinarily
charismatic,
so he was seen as
kind of a good guy,
despite his ruthlessness.
He was able to, in a way,
create almost a Robin
Hood-type image.
- [Narrator] Capone
manipulates elections
and buys off cops.
60% or more of the Chicago PD
is said to be on his payroll.
He's spending
$500,000 per month,
equivalent to $6 million
today, keeping them loyal.
- Capone was smart enough
to dump a lot of his profits
back into bribery, knowing that
if he bought off the police,
if he bought off
the politicians,
who was there to come after him?
(cheerful music)
- [Narrator] Capone's
organization takes in
an estimated $85
million per year.
- Al Capone, in his early 30s,
was bringing in unheard
of sums for the time.
- Al Capone was
a big, showy guy.
Capone was the type
that he flaunted it.
- [Narrator] He sported
a $50,000-pinky ring.
- [Man] Oh, shiny.
- [Narrator] He was
one of the first
to request custom
bulletproofing of his car.
- [Man] Take your best shot.
- [Narrator] One
birthday, he decided
he wanted to hear jazz
musician Fats Waller,
so we kidnapped him.
- [Fats] Hey.
- [Narrator] And made him play.
Fats got thousands in tips.
(audience cheering)
But it's his celebrity
that proves Al Capone's
ultimate undoing,
and there's only so long you
can hide behind the number 18.
- He's an example to us
of how to get the IRS up
your (beep) really quick,
and how to get FBI
agents surveilling you
morning, noon, and night.
If you wanna be an Al Capone,
it's another way of saying
you wanna be stupid?
You wanna go to jail?
You wanna call
attention to yourself?
- Capone is facing growing
pressure from all sides.
It's very difficult to pin him
down on any specific crime,
but where they do get
them is on tax evasion.
He's convicted and
sent to jail in 1932.
(dramatic music)
- When you're that
big a mob boss,
you probably have a
lot of stuff going on.
- I don't know how to do taxes.
- Having dealt with like
government tax agents,
they find everything.
- You can never
trust an accountant.
- Like let's just say between
murder and tax irregularities,
the government has already
caught me for one thing.
- [Narrator] Capone
has a meteoric rise,
but a wretched fall.
His infamous reign in
Chicago lasts only six years
before finding
himself behind bars.
In Alcatraz, his health
deteriorates quickly.
Public enemy number one
dies in 1947, at age 48.
- He's just a guy who really
made a lot of mistakes
and put himself out there,
and he's an example of
how you shouldn't be.
(numbers ticking)
- [Narrator] Capone's
downfall is a lesson
to all crime bosses.
You can only hide in
plain sight for so long.
- There was another kind
of crime boss out there
who tends to be much more
secretive, in the shadows.
Somebody who doesn't
like to be seen.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] Meet Meyer Lansky.
- Meyer Lansky was
a small, quiet guy,
and Meyer Lansky's
strength was this quietude.
- [Narrator] From
the very beginning,
Lansky is a percentage guy,
5.25%, to be exact.
(drum beating)
And part of his calculation
is he's gonna need a partner.
It's 1918, Lower
East Side, Manhattan.
A 16-year-old book
smart Jewish immigrant
walks home from school.
- [Meyer] I'm walking here.
- [Narrator] His
name is Meyer Lansky.
- [Meyer] How you doin'?
- [Narrator] His life
is about to change.
A kid his age is being roughed
up over a game of crabs.
Lansky rushes in to save him.
- [Bugsy] Thanks, man.
- [Narrator] The kid's
name is Bugsy Siegel.
- [Bugsy] How you doin'?
- He befriends Siegel.
They become close.
Both are Jews, and
their opposites.
Lansky was a low-key guy,
and Siegel was tough.
He's got a big mouth,
little more wild.
Bugsy lived for the day.
- [Narrator] Bugsy's the
muscle. Lansky's the brains.
- Siegel would kill
you in a heartbeat.
You know, then there's this
smart guy like Meyer Lansky
steps back and says,
"How do I navigate my way
through this snake pit?"
And he figures out
that the best way
is to let everybody
kill each other.
That's fine, but I'm
gonna be the money guy.
- [Narrator] Lansky
calculates that the mob
will be more successful
if it unites.
- There were gangs of Italians
and there were gangs to Jews,
and they said, "Hey,
look, you know what?
Maybe if we work together,
we'll all get rich,"
and that's how the syndicate
pretty much started.
- That is the
organized crime version
of what we call
horizontal integration.
- [Narrator] Founded in 1929,
the syndicate pulls together
at least 14 member organizations
from across the country.
- [Man] Philly, Detroit,
Buffalo, Chicago,
New York, New Jersey.
- Lansky is really one of
the powers behind the throne
in all this.
- [Narrator] They
remain a powerful force
in organized crime
for the next 30 years.
Lansky says they made the
mob bigger than US Steel.
- [Lansky] We're in the
making-money business.
- The key to any business
is you make people money,
you're the boss.
That's business.
It's the same
thing with the mob.
Lansky knew how to
make the mob money.
- So Lansky becomes
very much the accountant
as opposed to the enforcer.
And unlike Capone, doesn't
see necessarily brute force
as the best means
of earning money.
- [Announcer] DATELINE
Washington, December 5th, 1933.
In a moment, the story-
- [Narrator] When
prohibition ends,
taking an enormous
black market with it.
- [Announcer] And so ended
the noble experiment.
- [Narrator] Lansky
finds the next big thing.
Gambling, he says, pulls
at the core of a man.
- People love gambling 'cause
it beats making money working.
- It's enticing.
- Is like $10 losing money?
That is losing money, yes.
Yes, I have lost some money.
- There's a possibility
at a better life.
- You're like just
one more time.
One more dollar.
- Lansky was an
absolute brainiac when
it came to numbers,
and he put it towards gambling.
He put it towards
understanding the odds
so that the house
was always gonna win.
- [Narrator] For Lansky,
it's a numbers game.
Or more specifically,
a percentage game.
5.25%, that's the house
edge on a roulette wheel,
which means for
every $100 you bet,
Lansky looks to make five bucks.
On the slots, his
profit margin is 17%.
And from the mugs who play Keno,
he's raking in a whopping 25%.
And for Lansky, there's
nowhere bigger than Las Vegas,
where casinos are
legalized in 1931,
and we're the Flamingo Hotel
will put the bling
into gambling.
- The Flamingo took all that
sleaziness out of gambling
by making it like this
really nice, fancy casino,
the Disneyland for adults.
- [Narrator] The problem,
Bugsy's in charge,
and he doesn't have
Lansky's brain.
The $1.2 million budget
balloons to 6 million,
and the syndicate
suspects Bugsy's skimming.
That's unforgivable.
- And that's when the
mob realized that,
"Hey, you know what?
It's time for him to go."
That's how Lansky gets
involved, and a lot of people,
they say that he
kind of gave the nod.
They say he okayed
it, reluctantly.
- [Narrator] Brawn
is trumped by brains.
A month after Bugsy is killed,
the Flamingo turns a profit.
(upbeat music)
The mob falls in
love with Vegas.
A strip of new casinos
rises from the desert,
and by 1954, 8 million visitors
are dropping 200 million a year.
- [Man] Vegas, baby.
- [Narrator] Today, that
number is more than 24 billion.
- [Man] Vegas!
- Meyer Lansky brought up
legitimate face to gambling.
He also showed people how much
money could be made from it.
(slots dinging)
- [Narrator] After
Bugsy's death,
Lansky goes in search
of the next big thing.
He finds it in Cuba.
- We're having a real
shift at this point
that allows a larger slice of
Americans to go on vacations.
- [Narrator] For American
tourists, Cuba is exotic.
For Cuba's President
Batista, they're a cash cow,
and he hires Lansky to milk
them for all their worth.
- Lansky recognized
the opportunity here.
This was really a goldmine
outside of US jurisdiction,
and so this made it
especially attractive
for organized crime.
- [Narrator] Lansky's all in.
He builds clubs and
casinos all over Havana,
and he's an early pioneer
of the all-inclusive.
He's offering place out of
Miami with hotel and buffet
at a loss for just 50 bucks.
But for Lansky, it makes
sense for 350,000 reasons.
- All that for
$50 is ridiculous.
- Just dinner and a movie,
that's 50 bucks right there.
- I could buy gas, once.
- I would have oodles of
really tan, shirtless men
just feeding me drinks.
- I think with $50 today,
you either get like a decent
buffet or a terrible brothel.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] The
tourists love it.
In 1957, more than
350,000 flocked to Cuba.
And the jewel in Lansky's
crown, the Havana Riviera.
- Lansky is flying
high in Havana,
and he's basically
making a mint,
but the rest of the country
is facing desperate straits,
and you're seeing extraordinary
inequalities and poverty.
We see the signs of
insurrection rising.
(dramatic music)
- New year's Eve, 1958,
Meyer Lansky is in his office
celebrating the first year
of the Havana
Riviera's operation,
and the $3 million it made.
- [Lansky] Ah, it's
good to be king.
- [Narrator] But in the
presidential palace,
Batista is packing his bags.
- [Batista] Ah, can
I have one ticket
to a non-extradition
country, please?
- [Narrator] He
knows his time is up.
He's preparing to flee
the country that night.
- Fidel Castro marches
into Cuba, Havana,
takes the capital, and
that ends the party.
- [Narrator] Lansky's
hot on Batista's heels,
escaping with his life, but
leaving his casinos to Castro.
- And that basically was the
end of Lansky's dream in Cuba.
- [Narrator] Lansky will
never reach the heights he hit
in Cuba again.
When he finally settles down
for good, it's in Miami,
where he lives out
a modest retirement.
- Meyer Lansky lived to be
80, which is really unusual
for the life of a high-ranking
member of organized crime.
- Lansky stands in
direct contrast to Capone
who lived fast and violent,
and made hundreds of
millions, but died young.
- [Narrator] And Lansky
has one last surprise.
He's supposed to be worth $300
million, $3 billion today,
but when he dies, he has
only $57,000 to his name.
- There's a big mystery
as to what happened
to Lansky's hundreds
of millions of dollars.
Some people say that
Lansky lost it all in Cuba.
- If I can meet any
crime boss in history,
I would wanna sit down
with Meyer Lansky,
and I would ask him
where the 300 million is
that they couldn't find.
- [Narrator] Whether they've
got brains, brawn, or charisma,
crime bosses all have
one thing in common,
the power to strike
fear in their enemies,
none more so than
this guy, Khun Sa.
- Khun Sa was, without a doubt,
Asia's most fearsome mobster.
He's extraordinarily ruthless
and shows this brutality
by exerting maximal violence
against his rivals or opponents,
and so this becomes a
trademark of Khun Sa
from the very beginning.
- [Narrator] Lansky
may have thought
he had it tough growing
up in the Bronx,
but that's nothing compared
to where Khun Sa grew up
in the '60s.
A lawless region known
as the Golden Triangle,
on the borders of
Thailand, Laos and Burma.
- The Golden Triangle is this
area renowned around the world
as a source of drugs, and in
particular, opium and heroin.
- [Narrator] The
triangle is the center
of the world's opium trade,
producing a thousand
metric tons annually.
- It's essentially a no
man's land, the Wild West,
extraordinarily
disorganized and lawless.
- [Narrator] It's fertile
grounds, not only for opium,
but also for the ambitions
of a would-be crime
boss like Khun Sa.
- Khun Sa is part bandit,
part liberation fighter,
selling drugs in order to
fund his separatist movements
and his own activities
within Burma.
- [Narrator] 16 Is
a pivotal number.
That's the age Lansky
formed a street gang,
and also the age Khun Sa
began growing his rebel army.
(suspenseful music)
- To have my own army at 16
would have been horrifying.
- I needed my dad's help
to start the lawnmower.
- When I was 16, they
gave me a car to drive.
- When I was 16, I was
trying not to get pregnant.
(roulette ball rolling)
- [Narrator] While Lansky
built an empire on gambling,
the stakes for Khun
Sa were much higher.
Northern Burma, a
massive caravan winds
through the jungle,
carrying 16 metric tons
of opium on 300 mules.
Guarded by 500 soldiers, it
stretches more than a mile
through enemy territory.
At the head of the caravan,
commanding it, Khun Sa.
(guns firing)
The hills are suddenly
alive with gunfire
as commandos pour
down into the valley.
A rival warlord
has ambushed him.
Overhead, dive bombers strike
and tear the jungle apart,
decimating the caravan.
Just another day in
the Golden Triangle.
And where is Khun
Sa's opium heading?
Answer, next door to Vietnam,
(funky music)
where young American soldiers
in the midst of a
devastating conflict
with the communist North
are looking for any escape
from the horrors of war.
For many desperate
GIs, that's heroin.
- There is an enormous
demand for heroin,
an enormous use of heroin.
- [Narrator] 500,000 Us
troops are now stationed here.
One in five is a
habitual heroin user.
That's 100,000 and rising.
And when they return home,
they take their heroin
habits with them.
- People came home from war,
and they didn't just immediately
lose those addictions.
They brought them
back with them.
- And this becomes a really
important sort of source
of demand for heroin in America.
- [Narrator] By 1970, the
number of heroin addicts
in the US surges to
an estimated 750,000.
- Guys like Khun Sa,
these drug lords,
they controlled drugs the
same way OPEC controlled oil
in the '70s.
- [Narrator] In 1973,
the French Connection,
the biggest heroin route to
the states, is broken up.
- [Man] That is a
crazy car chase.
- [Narrator] But it doesn't
disrupt supply for long.
It's the '80s, and a new
pure form of heroin shows up
on the streets of New
York called China white.
- I remember when China
white hit the streets
because I knew guys
who dealt in it
and those guys will move in
China white by the trunk load.
- [Narrator] It all leads
back to one man, Khun Sa,
who has built a bond
villain-like fortress
in the Golden Triangle.
Trenches cut into cliffs,
anti aircraft missiles,
even a hydroelectric dam
to power his operation.
- What Khun Sa does
is he industrializes
heroin production,
a 24/7 production, refining,
distribution cycle,
and so in a very
short period of time,
he's able to expand and scale
his distribution globally.
- [Narrator] While
New York drowns
in his deadly product,
Khun Sa is the opium king.
(dramatic music)
Heroin production sores
from 500 to 2,500
metric tons annually,
a 400% increase.
- At the peak of Khun Sa's
reign as the opium king
by the end of the 1980s, he
controlled something like 70%
of the heroin being
produced in Burma.
- [Narrator] It goes worldwide
through Thailand and Hong
Kong, to China, Asia, Europe,
and of course, the US.
15 metric tons per year
wind up in the States,
driving the US heroin epidemic.
- [Announcer] For
the ghetto dweller,
heroin is a desperate
bid for freedom,
an escape from the despair
of a (indistinct) prison.
- What we see is a significant
rise in use of heroin,
use and addiction in
the United States,
and that's because
there's such a huge
and abundant supply of the drug.
- [Narrator] And Khun
Sa reaps the rewards.
At his height, his
net worth is estimated
at 5.6, 5 billion, putting him
billions ahead of Al Capone
and Meyer Lansky.
But Khun Sa says, unlike
Capone and Lansky,
he is no criminal.
- He's saying, "I'm
not a gangster.
I'm actually doing this for
the sake of the Shan people,"
seeking deliberate his
people from the shackles
of Burmese authoritarianism.
- [Narrator] And so in 1993,
Khun Sa declares independence.
- Khun Sa has got an army
of over 20,000 people
under his command.
He becomes a ruler, a prince
in the north of Burma.
- These drug Lords make so
much money that a lot of them,
it goes to their head.
Khun Sa started his own country.
You're not supposed to do that.
I don't care who you are.
- If I were king
of my own country,
I feel like it's hard not
to get drunk with power.
- I'd probably have
tons of concubines.
- Cats would be our
national animal.
- I'd ruin it.
I'd ruin it so fast.
I feel like I'd screw it up.
I would ruin a country
for sure, guaranteed.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] But Khun
Sa has gone too far.
Burma makes a $1.4 billion
arms deal with China,
and mobilizes 10,000 troops,
all for a single purpose, to
cut Khun Sa down to socks.
- Khun Sa negotiates
his way out in 1996,
retaining his fortune,
and essentially lives
out a fairly happy life
to a natural end.
- [Narrator] Khun Sa
dies in 2007, age 73,
still a free man.
- He's seen as somebody
who's, on the one hand,
to be a shining example of
the separatists militant,
on the other hand,
decades of being
one of the most significant
distributors of heroin
on the planet.
- If you change drug
Lord to businessman,
Khun Sa's story is
pretty inspiring.
If he was a businessman,
we'd probably be teaching
about him in schools.
- [Narrator] Lansky
lives till he's 80,
Khun Sa till he's 73,
Pablo Escobar dies
when he's just 44,
but was a bigger crime
boss in his lifetime
than both of the other
two put together.
- It's like the kid goes
into the amusement park
and gets on as many
rides as he possibly can,
eats as much cotton
candy as he possibly can.
Doesn't care if he's gonna
throw up all the cotton candy,
he's gonna have fun
while he's in the park.
That was Escobar.
- [Narrator] He begins small,
as small as a Renault 4.
Medellin, Colombia, 1971.
A 22-year-old street
hood steals a Renault 4
and drives it from Medellin
all the way to Ecuador.
There he buys five
kilos of cocaine paste.
- [Pablo] Can I have a receipt?
- [Narrator] He
brings it back home
through police and military
checkpoints with no trouble.
(officer speaking Spanish)
He sells it to a local
drug dealer for $100,000.
(trumpets blowing)
Two months later,
the dealer he sold
the cocaine to, dead.
The new head of his operation,
our infamous car
thief, Pablo Escobar.
- You can call me Don Pablo.
- I have heard of him.
- I think he's tied to cocaine.
- The guy's nickname
was the king of cocaine.
- White frat boys really
idolize that guy way too much.
- [Narrator] In the early 1970s,
Escobar runs a small operation,
but all that's about to change.
- This is really at the era
in which cocaine is
coming into its own.
American demand was
growing rapidly,
and Pablo is
sitting on about 70%
of the world's cocaine
supply in Colombia.
- [Narrator] Escobar
sees a big opportunity,
and it starts with a
simple calculation.
A kilo of cocaine is
worth about $2,500.
By the time you get it to
Mexico, it'll be 12,000.
- [Pablo] Hola.
- [Narrator] In New York City,
that value increases to 2500.
- [Pablo] Hey, I'm
buying cocaine here.
- [Narrator] And in
Europe, it's $50,000.
- [Pablo] Bonjour, bongiorno.
- [Narrator] Get it
as far as Sydney,
and you're making
$100,000 a kilo.
- [Pablo] Good day, mate.
- What Pablo understood was that
if you were gonna make money
in the cocaine business,
you couldn't just
produce it and refine it,
you had to also own
the distribution,
and that's where
the real money is.
- [Narrator] So he goes to the
cocoa farmers around Medellin
and offers them twice the going
rate to control their crops.
Soon, all the territory
belongs to him,
and the dealers
have to fall in line
with his new Medellin cartel.
- To somebody like
Pablo Escobar,
how he propelled
themselves to the top,
a big part of it
was ruthlessness.
- He came up with the
idea of plata or plomo,
silver or lead, whereby
you either cooperated
and you got silver, or you
didn't, and you got a bullet
to the back of your head.
- [Narrator] In
his rise to power,
Escobar makes Colombia the
murder capital of the world.
In 1991, there are more
than 25,000 violent
deaths in Colombia.
The homicide rate per capita
in Medellin is nearly 40 times
that of the United States.
According to reports,
Escobar personally orders
4,000 people killed,
including 200 judges, and
1000 police, journalists,
and other officials.
- Escobar had no qualms
with using a absolute
bloody ruthless force
to expand his business.
(suspenseful music)
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] From Medellin
through the Caribbean to Miami,
Escobar smuggles 15
metric tons of cocaine
into the US every day.
That's almost $250
million worth of cocaine,
every day and every way.
- Cocaine came every which
way you could think of.
I don't care if it's boats,
planes, or somebody's (beep).
Where there's a
will, there's a way.
- [Narrator] By the mid
'80s, the Medellin cartel
controls 80% of the
global cocaine market.
Four out of five lines
anywhere on earth
come straight from Escobar.
- The cocaine that's
coming out of Colombia
starts as a trickle
and turns into a flood
to a point that law enforcement
couldn't even keep up.
- [Narrator] And the
rewards are dizzying.
Escobar's personal net
worth has been estimated
at $60 billion.
The richest criminal ever.
In 1989, Forbes lists him as
the seventh richest person
in the world.
(cheerful music)
- $60 billion? Such
enormous wealth.
- I don't think human
beings are even able
of conceptualizing
that large of a number.
- Good on you, Pablo
Escobar, I guess.
- It's too much money.
No one should have
that much money.
Just a billion would
suffice for me.
- It's really hard to quantify
the sheer amount of money
that Escobar was pulling in.
I mean, by some estimates,
he was making something
in the order of $150 million
a day in today's dollars.
- [Narrator] There's so
much money coming in,
he spends $2,500 a
month on rubber bands.
He can afford to lose an
astonishing $2.1 billion a year,
eaten by rats or
damaged by water.
(rat burps)
It's estimated that $1.3
billion is still scattered
in hiding places
all over Colombia.
- You know, that's the curse
of making so much money.
You can't even hide it.
You spend your life
trying to figure out
where am I gonna put it?
- [Narrator] Escobar is
untouchable in Colombia,
but there is one
thing he does fear.
(tense music)
- Pablo Escobar feared
extradition to the United States
because he knew that the
sentence he would be given
would either be life in
prison or potentially death.
- No drug lord wants
to come to America
and face justice in
the United States.
Nobody. You don't
wanna come here.
Who are you gonna bribe?
- [Narrator] In 1989, a
Colombian presidential candidate
threatens Escobar
with extradition, as
part of his campaign.
Escobar has him killed in
front of 10,000 people.
For Colombia, it's
the final straw.
- Escobar recognizes that
the pressure is rising
and he negotiates
his way to prison
by saying that he's going
to give up the drugs trade
and he's gonna go clean.
But the thing is, the prison
isn't an ordinary prison.
The prison is a prison that
he, in fact, has commissioned,
had had built, has staffed,
and essentially runs.
- [Narrator] It's
called La Catedral.
It has a jacuzzi, a
waterfall, and a soccer pitch.
- You got to hand it to the guy.
If I could build myself
a prison, I would have.
It's like puttin' a
fence around my mansion.
- [Narrator] But when he
has four of his lieutenants
tortured and killed
inside the prison,
the Colombian
government steps in.
- The military is ordered to
take him out of the prison,
to put him pack
into another prison,
and he's refusing to come out,
and there's this extraordinary
moment of a standoff.
- [Narrator] So Escobar just
walks out the back gate.
He's officially on the run.
- [Pablo] Adios.
- [Narrator] 600 soldiers
are specially trained
by US Delta Force to
hunt Escobar down.
A $5 million bounty
is placed on his head.
- Between 1992 and '93,
essentially, Escobar is
on the run from the law,
living from safe
house to safe house,
hiding out in the jungle.
- [Narrator] What
proves to be the undoing
of the biggest crime boss
the world had ever seen
is the power of
the number three.
He uses his cell phone.
- [Pablo] Hola, mama.
- [Mama] Eh, Pablo.
- [Narrator] And by
intercepting his calls
from three separate locations,
authorities are able to
triangulate the signal.
- He ends up back
in his hometown
and is encircled by
the Colombian military
with support from the US.
- [Narrator] He flees across
rooftops to a back street,
but that's as far as he gets.
- He dies in a hail of bullets,
including a number to his head.
- Pablo Escobar did
not know when to stop.
At some point, you
gotta reign it in.
When enough forces want
you gone, you're gone,
and that's what happened
with Pablo Escobar.
- [Narrator] There's
a pattern here.
A boss like Escobar or Capone
who lives life in the fast lane
is the boss who's
gonna crash and burn.
But what about the
opposite extreme?
A boss like Semion Mogilevich,
who doesn't just
keep a low profile,
he keeps no profile whatsoever.
- Nobody really
knows much about him,
and he certainly doesn't want
to have the world
know much about him.
He's had no difficulty
receding into the shadows.
In fact, he understands,
I think, intuitively
that it's best not to be seen.
- [Narrator] It's
Moscow in the 1980s,
and the collapse of the
Soviet Union is about to spawn
one of the most dangerous
mobsters in the world.
- The Soviet Union is in
a process of disarray.
The economy begins
to break apart.
- Life wasn't wonderful.
There was all kinds of
criminal activity going on.
You had to be extremely
careful as to who you trusted.
- [Narrator] In the chaos of
the Soviet Union's collapse,
1.6 million Jews decide
to fleet to the West,
taking with them only
what they can carry.
- There is a mass
migration of Jews
out of the Soviet Union
into Western countries
who would accept them.
- [Narrator] For up and coming
mobster Semion Mogilevich,
it's a golden opportunity.
He tells them he's Jewish,
too, and wants to help.
- [Semion] You can trust me.
- [Narrator] They'll need
money when they settle,
but they can't take
anything with them,
so he makes them a deal.
He will buy their assets cheap,
then he'll sell them
for market value
and send the profits on.
- This was these
families savings
because there were
no banks at this time
in the Soviet Union.
- [Narrator] According
to media reports,
they never see a dime,
but he makes millions.
- [Semion] Like taking
candy from a babushka.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] For
Mogilevich, it's seed money
for much bigger
opportunities to come.
With the fall of communism
comes globalization,
and for those with
the right connections,
it's a chance to do business
on an unprecedented scale,
whether legitimate or not.
- I was once in a state
jail with a Russian,
and we did business with
the Russians all the time.
They come from
tough environments,
so those guys are
different, you know?
They're good gangsters,
I got to tell you.
- [Narrator] Between
1990 and 1993,
crime rises 40% in Russia,
and the homicide rate
more than doubles.
- In the middle of this chaos,
we have the rise of
Semion Mogilevich.
- [Narrator] Mogilevich,
however, is not
your stereotypical
Russian gangster.
- When I think of Russian
mobsters, I think of someone
who's wearing like
bear-skin hat.
(bear roaring)
- Dudes in
wife-beater tank tops,
listening to electronic music.
(speaking in foreign language)
- The stars on the chest.
- Monotone and scary.
Russians are the scariest
white people on the planet.
(numbers ticking)
- Mogilevich is a different
kind of organized criminal.
He doesn't start as
a ruthless gangster.
Instead, he was a man who
was behind the scenes,
who pulled the strings
and moved the money.
Man has a degree in
economics, and understands
how the international
financial system operates.
- [Narrator] He's been
called The Brainy Don,
laundering dirty money
around the world,
but he doesn't stop there.
He begins to diversify
his criminal interests,
and by the mid '90s, is the boss
of an estimated 300 criminal
associates in 30 countries.
- He's involved in a vast array
of different kinds
of businesses.
He's not limited as Escobar
is to, say, cocaine,
or Al Capone is selling alcohol.
He actually spreads
his tendrils far,
from classical organized
crime, prostitution rings,
and extortion rackets,
and identity theft,
or even contract killing,
all the way to weapons
manufacturing, and
financial fraud.
- [Narrator] May 13th, 1998,
FBI agents swarm the
Pennsylvania headquarters
of YBM Magnex, a producer
of industrial magnets.
In the past four years, the
publicly traded company's stock
has risen from 10
cents a share to $20.
- And it turned out
that this company,
worth over a billion
dollars at its peak,
was actually a front
for a whole variety
of money laundering schemes,
and an audacious act of
organized crime in plain sight.
- [Narrator] In an instant,
(glass shatters)
YBM becomes worthless.
Investors lose $150 million.
(dramatic music)
The defrauded investors
are in Canada.
- [Man] What's this
fraud all about, eh?
- [Narrator] The FBI
raid is in Philadelphia.
- [Man] We need banker boxes.
Repeat, banker boxes.
- [Narrator] YBM's
supplier is little more
than an empty shed in Hungary.
(sheep bleating)
The mastermind behind it
all, according to the FBI,
it's Semion Mogilevich.
(Semion speaking Russian)
- Using complex
financial instruments,
very, very clever
accounting procedures,
he was able to take
the money and run
long before the
authorities were aware
of what was happening.
- That scam was a turning point
as it came to financial crimes.
Losing more than a
hundred million dollars
back in the 1990s
was almost an unheard of amount.
- [Narrator] It raises
the alarms to authorities
that they are dealing
with something new,
a 21st century boss
who can weaponize
the new globalized economy to
strike anywhere in the world.
- The very institutions
that drove capitalism
were being infiltrated in
rather extraordinary fashion
by a Russian mobster.
- [Narrator] Five years
after the FBI raid,
Semion Mogilevich is
indicted in the United States
for 45 counts of
fraud and conspiracy,
but hopes of apprehending
him hit a roadblock
thanks to a friend in a
very, very high place.
(dramatic music)
May 7th, 2000, Vladimir
Putin is sworn in
as Russia's president,
and ushers in a new era.
- Vladimir Putin, even
before he was the president
of Russia, made a point
to be on friendly terms
with transnational
organized crime
from the former Soviet
Union to his own advantage.
- [Narrator] Mogilevich
is welcomed by the
new ruling party,
and the Russian mafia.
- [Man] We have money
that needs cleaning, da?
- [Narrator] And his
influence is now worldwide.
In all, he controls
100 front companies,
and has bank accounts
in 27 countries.
- [Semion] Thank you, Vladimir.
- [Narrator] His net
worth has been estimated
at $10 billion.
- [Semion] That's
a lot of rubles.
- [Narrator] But the truth
is, no one knows for sure
just how big that number is.
(dramatic music)
- So in 2009, Semion
Mogilevich was put on the FBI's
top 10 most wanted list.
- [Narrator] But in 2015,
he is taken off the list
because without an extradition
treaty with Russia,
the FBI has no hope
of getting their man.
- In many ways,
Mogilevich is the sum
of many of the past crime
bosses that we've seen.
I mean, he brings some of
the ruthlessness of Capone,
he brings the business
acumen of a Lansky,
he understands the global
supply chains of a Khun Sa,
and, of course, Escobar,
but he also kept a
very low profile,
unlike other crime
bosses in the past.
So in a way he's a perfect
archetype crime boss
for the moment.
- [Narrator] The
Brainy Don stands
with some very unsavory giants
that have defined organized
crime over the past century.
- All five were, in a
way, men of their moments,
whether it was Prohibition,
or whether it was
a war on drugs,
or whether it was globalization,
or the dissolution of a country,
each one understood that
there was an opportunity
to be taken advantage of,
and each one successfully
seized it for a moment.
- If I was a crime boss,
I would get killed the
very first day, hours in.
I'm not cut out for
that type of thing.
- Living a life of crime,
but you're just stressed
out the whole time.
How is that fun?
- I am definitely gonna be
the quiet puppet master.
The real people you
need to watch out for
are the people who are
just like super quiet.
- You see how big my hair is?
I'd obviously be
the loud crime boss.
- I wouldn't want
people to know my face
or that they're getting
their orders from a woman.
- I would be like a quiet,
undercover crime boss.
I don't need people to know
that I'm crime bossing.
(dramatic music)
(siren wailing)
- I know nothing
about crime bosses,
except for "The Godfather."
- When I think of a crime boss,
they just have that
absolute power, you know?
- Riches the likes of which
most of us will never see.
- Ruthless, determined.
- Ambition and charisma.
- Or you just have zero morals.
I feel like these
guys are way worse
than we make them
look in TV and film.
- [Narrator] Crime bosses,
and the underworld
organizations they command
(explosive booms)
have always been with us.
- As long as there have been
human beings interacting,
there's been organized crime.
- From the moment we wake up
to the moment we go to sleep,
we're in contact in various
ways with organized crime.
It's really
everywhere around us.
- Depending on the country,
between 10% to
40% of our economy
is controlled by
organized crime groups.
- [Narrator] And
the annual worth
of that black market economy
today is mind-blowing.
- $2.2 trillion.
- 2.2-
- 2.2-
- Trillion.
- Trillion.
- Trillion dollars.
- That's a lotta clams.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] This is the story
of five notorious crime bosses
who shaped the last
century of organized crime.
(upbeat music)
(rocket engines roaring)
(roulette ball rolling)
(pensive music)
What does it take to
become a crime boss,
one of the most exclusive
jobs in the world?
Some hide in the shadows.
Others crave the limelight.
(camera shutters snapping)
- Al Capone, he was the
classic mobster celebrity.
He's really the first
mobster to surface in America
who becomes a national name.
- [Narrator] And that's the
secret of Al Capone's success:
the ability to hide
in plain sight.
(melancholy music)
It's February 14th,
1929, Chicago.
It's a story you
may think you know.
Police line members
of the Bugs Moran gang
up against a wall.
- [Police Officer]
Come on, you mutts.
- [Narrator] It looks like
they're about to be arrested,
but this is not a police raid,
(guns shooting)
it's a gang land hit.
70 gunshots, seven dead men,
and pulling the
strings, Al Capone.
- Say hello to my little friend.
- Capone sends four
of his people dressed
as police officers
to raid George Moran.
This was his chief
rival, this Irish gang.
- He basically figured "I'll
wipe them all out in one shot,"
and he pulled it off.
I mean, that's like
the hit of hits.
- [Narrator] It's called the
St Valentine's day massacre.
You know who did it, the
police know who did it,
but Al Capone, the original
public enemy number one,
is never charged.
(dramatic music)
How does he get away with it?
His secret is the number 18.
(upbeat music)
When Al Capone first
arrives in Chicago
in 1920, at age 21,
he finds the perfect
place to build an empire.
- Chicago had a
thriving, illegal,
racketeering organized
crime industry.
- [Narrator] Most
important for Capone,
the 18th amendment
has just passed,
making the manufacturer and
sale of alcohol illegal.
It's the start of Prohibition.
- [Man] There'll be a lot
of drive throats in Chicago
after this night's work.
- If alcohol was illegal, I
would still drink every day.
That would not stop me.
That didn't stop
anyone back then.
- I'd be like right in there,
having the time of my life.
- I love booze.
I'm definitely making alcohol
or smuggling it in
from some place.
- Yeah, if somebody tells
me I have to do something,
it immediately makes
me wanna do it.
- If it's fun, I will do it.
- Prohibition was
like a bombshell.
What happened immediately
was an explosion
of illicit production
and selling of alcohol
across the country.
Capone recognizes immediately
that this is an opportunity.
- [Narrator] But he's
not the only one.
At the time,
Chicago has an estimated
25,000 active gang members.
(drums beating)
- So you have the Italians,
you had the Irish,
you had the Jewish gangs,
you had the Polish gangs,
the German gang,
and it created a vicious
climate of competition,
which essentially wreaks
havoc across Chicago.
- You know, guys are
rolling up with Tommy guns
and gunning in each other down
because they want
your territory.
(explosive booms)
- [Narrator] In 1924, the
Chicago suburb of Cicero
has 161 gambling dens,
123 saloons, and 22 brothels.
That's one illegal establishment
for every 200 people,
and Al Capone is maneuvering
his way to controlling it all.
- If you're his enemy,
you're in trouble
because his temper could go
from zero to 60 in a hot second.
If you crossed
him, you were done.
- [Narrator] As
Capone's star rises,
the 1929 stock market
crash throws America
into the Great Depression.
By 1930, almost half
a million people
in Chicago are unemployed.
- The beginning of the Great
Depression in the United States
really creates food
insecurity, housing insecurity.
There's a lot of
social instability.
- [Narrator] A new soup
kitchen mysteriously appears,
and hungry Chicagoans
start to line up.
- [Man] Who wants
the soup of the day?
- [Narrator] The kitchen
serves three hot meals a day
and doesn't ask any questions.
Neither do the
desperate patrons.
- [Man] Just loading free.
- [Narrator] Word spreads,
and the lineup grows.
Soon, they'll be serving
2200 people a day.
For many, it's the only thing
in between them and starvation.
- [Man] Well, my
compliments to the chef.
- [Narrator] And who is
the mysterious benefactor
feeding the city?
You guessed it, Al Capone.
- Al Capone was smart.
He'd open up soup kitchens,
he'd give to the poor.
He knew that it would
endear people to him.
- [Narrator] The PR
cost him $300 a day,
which sounds generous with
daily wages around $4.
Meanwhile, Capone, at times,
was making up to $15,000 a day.
If you live in Capone's
neighborhood during
the depression,
you would think he was a hero.
- Capone, while ruthless,
was also extraordinarily
charismatic,
so he was seen as
kind of a good guy,
despite his ruthlessness.
He was able to, in a way,
create almost a Robin
Hood-type image.
- [Narrator] Capone
manipulates elections
and buys off cops.
60% or more of the Chicago PD
is said to be on his payroll.
He's spending
$500,000 per month,
equivalent to $6 million
today, keeping them loyal.
- Capone was smart enough
to dump a lot of his profits
back into bribery, knowing that
if he bought off the police,
if he bought off
the politicians,
who was there to come after him?
(cheerful music)
- [Narrator] Capone's
organization takes in
an estimated $85
million per year.
- Al Capone, in his early 30s,
was bringing in unheard
of sums for the time.
- Al Capone was
a big, showy guy.
Capone was the type
that he flaunted it.
- [Narrator] He sported
a $50,000-pinky ring.
- [Man] Oh, shiny.
- [Narrator] He was
one of the first
to request custom
bulletproofing of his car.
- [Man] Take your best shot.
- [Narrator] One
birthday, he decided
he wanted to hear jazz
musician Fats Waller,
so we kidnapped him.
- [Fats] Hey.
- [Narrator] And made him play.
Fats got thousands in tips.
(audience cheering)
But it's his celebrity
that proves Al Capone's
ultimate undoing,
and there's only so long you
can hide behind the number 18.
- He's an example to us
of how to get the IRS up
your (beep) really quick,
and how to get FBI
agents surveilling you
morning, noon, and night.
If you wanna be an Al Capone,
it's another way of saying
you wanna be stupid?
You wanna go to jail?
You wanna call
attention to yourself?
- Capone is facing growing
pressure from all sides.
It's very difficult to pin him
down on any specific crime,
but where they do get
them is on tax evasion.
He's convicted and
sent to jail in 1932.
(dramatic music)
- When you're that
big a mob boss,
you probably have a
lot of stuff going on.
- I don't know how to do taxes.
- Having dealt with like
government tax agents,
they find everything.
- You can never
trust an accountant.
- Like let's just say between
murder and tax irregularities,
the government has already
caught me for one thing.
- [Narrator] Capone
has a meteoric rise,
but a wretched fall.
His infamous reign in
Chicago lasts only six years
before finding
himself behind bars.
In Alcatraz, his health
deteriorates quickly.
Public enemy number one
dies in 1947, at age 48.
- He's just a guy who really
made a lot of mistakes
and put himself out there,
and he's an example of
how you shouldn't be.
(numbers ticking)
- [Narrator] Capone's
downfall is a lesson
to all crime bosses.
You can only hide in
plain sight for so long.
- There was another kind
of crime boss out there
who tends to be much more
secretive, in the shadows.
Somebody who doesn't
like to be seen.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] Meet Meyer Lansky.
- Meyer Lansky was
a small, quiet guy,
and Meyer Lansky's
strength was this quietude.
- [Narrator] From
the very beginning,
Lansky is a percentage guy,
5.25%, to be exact.
(drum beating)
And part of his calculation
is he's gonna need a partner.
It's 1918, Lower
East Side, Manhattan.
A 16-year-old book
smart Jewish immigrant
walks home from school.
- [Meyer] I'm walking here.
- [Narrator] His
name is Meyer Lansky.
- [Meyer] How you doin'?
- [Narrator] His life
is about to change.
A kid his age is being roughed
up over a game of crabs.
Lansky rushes in to save him.
- [Bugsy] Thanks, man.
- [Narrator] The kid's
name is Bugsy Siegel.
- [Bugsy] How you doin'?
- He befriends Siegel.
They become close.
Both are Jews, and
their opposites.
Lansky was a low-key guy,
and Siegel was tough.
He's got a big mouth,
little more wild.
Bugsy lived for the day.
- [Narrator] Bugsy's the
muscle. Lansky's the brains.
- Siegel would kill
you in a heartbeat.
You know, then there's this
smart guy like Meyer Lansky
steps back and says,
"How do I navigate my way
through this snake pit?"
And he figures out
that the best way
is to let everybody
kill each other.
That's fine, but I'm
gonna be the money guy.
- [Narrator] Lansky
calculates that the mob
will be more successful
if it unites.
- There were gangs of Italians
and there were gangs to Jews,
and they said, "Hey,
look, you know what?
Maybe if we work together,
we'll all get rich,"
and that's how the syndicate
pretty much started.
- That is the
organized crime version
of what we call
horizontal integration.
- [Narrator] Founded in 1929,
the syndicate pulls together
at least 14 member organizations
from across the country.
- [Man] Philly, Detroit,
Buffalo, Chicago,
New York, New Jersey.
- Lansky is really one of
the powers behind the throne
in all this.
- [Narrator] They
remain a powerful force
in organized crime
for the next 30 years.
Lansky says they made the
mob bigger than US Steel.
- [Lansky] We're in the
making-money business.
- The key to any business
is you make people money,
you're the boss.
That's business.
It's the same
thing with the mob.
Lansky knew how to
make the mob money.
- So Lansky becomes
very much the accountant
as opposed to the enforcer.
And unlike Capone, doesn't
see necessarily brute force
as the best means
of earning money.
- [Announcer] DATELINE
Washington, December 5th, 1933.
In a moment, the story-
- [Narrator] When
prohibition ends,
taking an enormous
black market with it.
- [Announcer] And so ended
the noble experiment.
- [Narrator] Lansky
finds the next big thing.
Gambling, he says, pulls
at the core of a man.
- People love gambling 'cause
it beats making money working.
- It's enticing.
- Is like $10 losing money?
That is losing money, yes.
Yes, I have lost some money.
- There's a possibility
at a better life.
- You're like just
one more time.
One more dollar.
- Lansky was an
absolute brainiac when
it came to numbers,
and he put it towards gambling.
He put it towards
understanding the odds
so that the house
was always gonna win.
- [Narrator] For Lansky,
it's a numbers game.
Or more specifically,
a percentage game.
5.25%, that's the house
edge on a roulette wheel,
which means for
every $100 you bet,
Lansky looks to make five bucks.
On the slots, his
profit margin is 17%.
And from the mugs who play Keno,
he's raking in a whopping 25%.
And for Lansky, there's
nowhere bigger than Las Vegas,
where casinos are
legalized in 1931,
and we're the Flamingo Hotel
will put the bling
into gambling.
- The Flamingo took all that
sleaziness out of gambling
by making it like this
really nice, fancy casino,
the Disneyland for adults.
- [Narrator] The problem,
Bugsy's in charge,
and he doesn't have
Lansky's brain.
The $1.2 million budget
balloons to 6 million,
and the syndicate
suspects Bugsy's skimming.
That's unforgivable.
- And that's when the
mob realized that,
"Hey, you know what?
It's time for him to go."
That's how Lansky gets
involved, and a lot of people,
they say that he
kind of gave the nod.
They say he okayed
it, reluctantly.
- [Narrator] Brawn
is trumped by brains.
A month after Bugsy is killed,
the Flamingo turns a profit.
(upbeat music)
The mob falls in
love with Vegas.
A strip of new casinos
rises from the desert,
and by 1954, 8 million visitors
are dropping 200 million a year.
- [Man] Vegas, baby.
- [Narrator] Today, that
number is more than 24 billion.
- [Man] Vegas!
- Meyer Lansky brought up
legitimate face to gambling.
He also showed people how much
money could be made from it.
(slots dinging)
- [Narrator] After
Bugsy's death,
Lansky goes in search
of the next big thing.
He finds it in Cuba.
- We're having a real
shift at this point
that allows a larger slice of
Americans to go on vacations.
- [Narrator] For American
tourists, Cuba is exotic.
For Cuba's President
Batista, they're a cash cow,
and he hires Lansky to milk
them for all their worth.
- Lansky recognized
the opportunity here.
This was really a goldmine
outside of US jurisdiction,
and so this made it
especially attractive
for organized crime.
- [Narrator] Lansky's all in.
He builds clubs and
casinos all over Havana,
and he's an early pioneer
of the all-inclusive.
He's offering place out of
Miami with hotel and buffet
at a loss for just 50 bucks.
But for Lansky, it makes
sense for 350,000 reasons.
- All that for
$50 is ridiculous.
- Just dinner and a movie,
that's 50 bucks right there.
- I could buy gas, once.
- I would have oodles of
really tan, shirtless men
just feeding me drinks.
- I think with $50 today,
you either get like a decent
buffet or a terrible brothel.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] The
tourists love it.
In 1957, more than
350,000 flocked to Cuba.
And the jewel in Lansky's
crown, the Havana Riviera.
- Lansky is flying
high in Havana,
and he's basically
making a mint,
but the rest of the country
is facing desperate straits,
and you're seeing extraordinary
inequalities and poverty.
We see the signs of
insurrection rising.
(dramatic music)
- New year's Eve, 1958,
Meyer Lansky is in his office
celebrating the first year
of the Havana
Riviera's operation,
and the $3 million it made.
- [Lansky] Ah, it's
good to be king.
- [Narrator] But in the
presidential palace,
Batista is packing his bags.
- [Batista] Ah, can
I have one ticket
to a non-extradition
country, please?
- [Narrator] He
knows his time is up.
He's preparing to flee
the country that night.
- Fidel Castro marches
into Cuba, Havana,
takes the capital, and
that ends the party.
- [Narrator] Lansky's
hot on Batista's heels,
escaping with his life, but
leaving his casinos to Castro.
- And that basically was the
end of Lansky's dream in Cuba.
- [Narrator] Lansky will
never reach the heights he hit
in Cuba again.
When he finally settles down
for good, it's in Miami,
where he lives out
a modest retirement.
- Meyer Lansky lived to be
80, which is really unusual
for the life of a high-ranking
member of organized crime.
- Lansky stands in
direct contrast to Capone
who lived fast and violent,
and made hundreds of
millions, but died young.
- [Narrator] And Lansky
has one last surprise.
He's supposed to be worth $300
million, $3 billion today,
but when he dies, he has
only $57,000 to his name.
- There's a big mystery
as to what happened
to Lansky's hundreds
of millions of dollars.
Some people say that
Lansky lost it all in Cuba.
- If I can meet any
crime boss in history,
I would wanna sit down
with Meyer Lansky,
and I would ask him
where the 300 million is
that they couldn't find.
- [Narrator] Whether they've
got brains, brawn, or charisma,
crime bosses all have
one thing in common,
the power to strike
fear in their enemies,
none more so than
this guy, Khun Sa.
- Khun Sa was, without a doubt,
Asia's most fearsome mobster.
He's extraordinarily ruthless
and shows this brutality
by exerting maximal violence
against his rivals or opponents,
and so this becomes a
trademark of Khun Sa
from the very beginning.
- [Narrator] Lansky
may have thought
he had it tough growing
up in the Bronx,
but that's nothing compared
to where Khun Sa grew up
in the '60s.
A lawless region known
as the Golden Triangle,
on the borders of
Thailand, Laos and Burma.
- The Golden Triangle is this
area renowned around the world
as a source of drugs, and in
particular, opium and heroin.
- [Narrator] The
triangle is the center
of the world's opium trade,
producing a thousand
metric tons annually.
- It's essentially a no
man's land, the Wild West,
extraordinarily
disorganized and lawless.
- [Narrator] It's fertile
grounds, not only for opium,
but also for the ambitions
of a would-be crime
boss like Khun Sa.
- Khun Sa is part bandit,
part liberation fighter,
selling drugs in order to
fund his separatist movements
and his own activities
within Burma.
- [Narrator] 16 Is
a pivotal number.
That's the age Lansky
formed a street gang,
and also the age Khun Sa
began growing his rebel army.
(suspenseful music)
- To have my own army at 16
would have been horrifying.
- I needed my dad's help
to start the lawnmower.
- When I was 16, they
gave me a car to drive.
- When I was 16, I was
trying not to get pregnant.
(roulette ball rolling)
- [Narrator] While Lansky
built an empire on gambling,
the stakes for Khun
Sa were much higher.
Northern Burma, a
massive caravan winds
through the jungle,
carrying 16 metric tons
of opium on 300 mules.
Guarded by 500 soldiers, it
stretches more than a mile
through enemy territory.
At the head of the caravan,
commanding it, Khun Sa.
(guns firing)
The hills are suddenly
alive with gunfire
as commandos pour
down into the valley.
A rival warlord
has ambushed him.
Overhead, dive bombers strike
and tear the jungle apart,
decimating the caravan.
Just another day in
the Golden Triangle.
And where is Khun
Sa's opium heading?
Answer, next door to Vietnam,
(funky music)
where young American soldiers
in the midst of a
devastating conflict
with the communist North
are looking for any escape
from the horrors of war.
For many desperate
GIs, that's heroin.
- There is an enormous
demand for heroin,
an enormous use of heroin.
- [Narrator] 500,000 Us
troops are now stationed here.
One in five is a
habitual heroin user.
That's 100,000 and rising.
And when they return home,
they take their heroin
habits with them.
- People came home from war,
and they didn't just immediately
lose those addictions.
They brought them
back with them.
- And this becomes a really
important sort of source
of demand for heroin in America.
- [Narrator] By 1970, the
number of heroin addicts
in the US surges to
an estimated 750,000.
- Guys like Khun Sa,
these drug lords,
they controlled drugs the
same way OPEC controlled oil
in the '70s.
- [Narrator] In 1973,
the French Connection,
the biggest heroin route to
the states, is broken up.
- [Man] That is a
crazy car chase.
- [Narrator] But it doesn't
disrupt supply for long.
It's the '80s, and a new
pure form of heroin shows up
on the streets of New
York called China white.
- I remember when China
white hit the streets
because I knew guys
who dealt in it
and those guys will move in
China white by the trunk load.
- [Narrator] It all leads
back to one man, Khun Sa,
who has built a bond
villain-like fortress
in the Golden Triangle.
Trenches cut into cliffs,
anti aircraft missiles,
even a hydroelectric dam
to power his operation.
- What Khun Sa does
is he industrializes
heroin production,
a 24/7 production, refining,
distribution cycle,
and so in a very
short period of time,
he's able to expand and scale
his distribution globally.
- [Narrator] While
New York drowns
in his deadly product,
Khun Sa is the opium king.
(dramatic music)
Heroin production sores
from 500 to 2,500
metric tons annually,
a 400% increase.
- At the peak of Khun Sa's
reign as the opium king
by the end of the 1980s, he
controlled something like 70%
of the heroin being
produced in Burma.
- [Narrator] It goes worldwide
through Thailand and Hong
Kong, to China, Asia, Europe,
and of course, the US.
15 metric tons per year
wind up in the States,
driving the US heroin epidemic.
- [Announcer] For
the ghetto dweller,
heroin is a desperate
bid for freedom,
an escape from the despair
of a (indistinct) prison.
- What we see is a significant
rise in use of heroin,
use and addiction in
the United States,
and that's because
there's such a huge
and abundant supply of the drug.
- [Narrator] And Khun
Sa reaps the rewards.
At his height, his
net worth is estimated
at 5.6, 5 billion, putting him
billions ahead of Al Capone
and Meyer Lansky.
But Khun Sa says, unlike
Capone and Lansky,
he is no criminal.
- He's saying, "I'm
not a gangster.
I'm actually doing this for
the sake of the Shan people,"
seeking deliberate his
people from the shackles
of Burmese authoritarianism.
- [Narrator] And so in 1993,
Khun Sa declares independence.
- Khun Sa has got an army
of over 20,000 people
under his command.
He becomes a ruler, a prince
in the north of Burma.
- These drug Lords make so
much money that a lot of them,
it goes to their head.
Khun Sa started his own country.
You're not supposed to do that.
I don't care who you are.
- If I were king
of my own country,
I feel like it's hard not
to get drunk with power.
- I'd probably have
tons of concubines.
- Cats would be our
national animal.
- I'd ruin it.
I'd ruin it so fast.
I feel like I'd screw it up.
I would ruin a country
for sure, guaranteed.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] But Khun
Sa has gone too far.
Burma makes a $1.4 billion
arms deal with China,
and mobilizes 10,000 troops,
all for a single purpose, to
cut Khun Sa down to socks.
- Khun Sa negotiates
his way out in 1996,
retaining his fortune,
and essentially lives
out a fairly happy life
to a natural end.
- [Narrator] Khun Sa
dies in 2007, age 73,
still a free man.
- He's seen as somebody
who's, on the one hand,
to be a shining example of
the separatists militant,
on the other hand,
decades of being
one of the most significant
distributors of heroin
on the planet.
- If you change drug
Lord to businessman,
Khun Sa's story is
pretty inspiring.
If he was a businessman,
we'd probably be teaching
about him in schools.
- [Narrator] Lansky
lives till he's 80,
Khun Sa till he's 73,
Pablo Escobar dies
when he's just 44,
but was a bigger crime
boss in his lifetime
than both of the other
two put together.
- It's like the kid goes
into the amusement park
and gets on as many
rides as he possibly can,
eats as much cotton
candy as he possibly can.
Doesn't care if he's gonna
throw up all the cotton candy,
he's gonna have fun
while he's in the park.
That was Escobar.
- [Narrator] He begins small,
as small as a Renault 4.
Medellin, Colombia, 1971.
A 22-year-old street
hood steals a Renault 4
and drives it from Medellin
all the way to Ecuador.
There he buys five
kilos of cocaine paste.
- [Pablo] Can I have a receipt?
- [Narrator] He
brings it back home
through police and military
checkpoints with no trouble.
(officer speaking Spanish)
He sells it to a local
drug dealer for $100,000.
(trumpets blowing)
Two months later,
the dealer he sold
the cocaine to, dead.
The new head of his operation,
our infamous car
thief, Pablo Escobar.
- You can call me Don Pablo.
- I have heard of him.
- I think he's tied to cocaine.
- The guy's nickname
was the king of cocaine.
- White frat boys really
idolize that guy way too much.
- [Narrator] In the early 1970s,
Escobar runs a small operation,
but all that's about to change.
- This is really at the era
in which cocaine is
coming into its own.
American demand was
growing rapidly,
and Pablo is
sitting on about 70%
of the world's cocaine
supply in Colombia.
- [Narrator] Escobar
sees a big opportunity,
and it starts with a
simple calculation.
A kilo of cocaine is
worth about $2,500.
By the time you get it to
Mexico, it'll be 12,000.
- [Pablo] Hola.
- [Narrator] In New York City,
that value increases to 2500.
- [Pablo] Hey, I'm
buying cocaine here.
- [Narrator] And in
Europe, it's $50,000.
- [Pablo] Bonjour, bongiorno.
- [Narrator] Get it
as far as Sydney,
and you're making
$100,000 a kilo.
- [Pablo] Good day, mate.
- What Pablo understood was that
if you were gonna make money
in the cocaine business,
you couldn't just
produce it and refine it,
you had to also own
the distribution,
and that's where
the real money is.
- [Narrator] So he goes to the
cocoa farmers around Medellin
and offers them twice the going
rate to control their crops.
Soon, all the territory
belongs to him,
and the dealers
have to fall in line
with his new Medellin cartel.
- To somebody like
Pablo Escobar,
how he propelled
themselves to the top,
a big part of it
was ruthlessness.
- He came up with the
idea of plata or plomo,
silver or lead, whereby
you either cooperated
and you got silver, or you
didn't, and you got a bullet
to the back of your head.
- [Narrator] In
his rise to power,
Escobar makes Colombia the
murder capital of the world.
In 1991, there are more
than 25,000 violent
deaths in Colombia.
The homicide rate per capita
in Medellin is nearly 40 times
that of the United States.
According to reports,
Escobar personally orders
4,000 people killed,
including 200 judges, and
1000 police, journalists,
and other officials.
- Escobar had no qualms
with using a absolute
bloody ruthless force
to expand his business.
(suspenseful music)
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] From Medellin
through the Caribbean to Miami,
Escobar smuggles 15
metric tons of cocaine
into the US every day.
That's almost $250
million worth of cocaine,
every day and every way.
- Cocaine came every which
way you could think of.
I don't care if it's boats,
planes, or somebody's (beep).
Where there's a
will, there's a way.
- [Narrator] By the mid
'80s, the Medellin cartel
controls 80% of the
global cocaine market.
Four out of five lines
anywhere on earth
come straight from Escobar.
- The cocaine that's
coming out of Colombia
starts as a trickle
and turns into a flood
to a point that law enforcement
couldn't even keep up.
- [Narrator] And the
rewards are dizzying.
Escobar's personal net
worth has been estimated
at $60 billion.
The richest criminal ever.
In 1989, Forbes lists him as
the seventh richest person
in the world.
(cheerful music)
- $60 billion? Such
enormous wealth.
- I don't think human
beings are even able
of conceptualizing
that large of a number.
- Good on you, Pablo
Escobar, I guess.
- It's too much money.
No one should have
that much money.
Just a billion would
suffice for me.
- It's really hard to quantify
the sheer amount of money
that Escobar was pulling in.
I mean, by some estimates,
he was making something
in the order of $150 million
a day in today's dollars.
- [Narrator] There's so
much money coming in,
he spends $2,500 a
month on rubber bands.
He can afford to lose an
astonishing $2.1 billion a year,
eaten by rats or
damaged by water.
(rat burps)
It's estimated that $1.3
billion is still scattered
in hiding places
all over Colombia.
- You know, that's the curse
of making so much money.
You can't even hide it.
You spend your life
trying to figure out
where am I gonna put it?
- [Narrator] Escobar is
untouchable in Colombia,
but there is one
thing he does fear.
(tense music)
- Pablo Escobar feared
extradition to the United States
because he knew that the
sentence he would be given
would either be life in
prison or potentially death.
- No drug lord wants
to come to America
and face justice in
the United States.
Nobody. You don't
wanna come here.
Who are you gonna bribe?
- [Narrator] In 1989, a
Colombian presidential candidate
threatens Escobar
with extradition, as
part of his campaign.
Escobar has him killed in
front of 10,000 people.
For Colombia, it's
the final straw.
- Escobar recognizes that
the pressure is rising
and he negotiates
his way to prison
by saying that he's going
to give up the drugs trade
and he's gonna go clean.
But the thing is, the prison
isn't an ordinary prison.
The prison is a prison that
he, in fact, has commissioned,
had had built, has staffed,
and essentially runs.
- [Narrator] It's
called La Catedral.
It has a jacuzzi, a
waterfall, and a soccer pitch.
- You got to hand it to the guy.
If I could build myself
a prison, I would have.
It's like puttin' a
fence around my mansion.
- [Narrator] But when he
has four of his lieutenants
tortured and killed
inside the prison,
the Colombian
government steps in.
- The military is ordered to
take him out of the prison,
to put him pack
into another prison,
and he's refusing to come out,
and there's this extraordinary
moment of a standoff.
- [Narrator] So Escobar just
walks out the back gate.
He's officially on the run.
- [Pablo] Adios.
- [Narrator] 600 soldiers
are specially trained
by US Delta Force to
hunt Escobar down.
A $5 million bounty
is placed on his head.
- Between 1992 and '93,
essentially, Escobar is
on the run from the law,
living from safe
house to safe house,
hiding out in the jungle.
- [Narrator] What
proves to be the undoing
of the biggest crime boss
the world had ever seen
is the power of
the number three.
He uses his cell phone.
- [Pablo] Hola, mama.
- [Mama] Eh, Pablo.
- [Narrator] And by
intercepting his calls
from three separate locations,
authorities are able to
triangulate the signal.
- He ends up back
in his hometown
and is encircled by
the Colombian military
with support from the US.
- [Narrator] He flees across
rooftops to a back street,
but that's as far as he gets.
- He dies in a hail of bullets,
including a number to his head.
- Pablo Escobar did
not know when to stop.
At some point, you
gotta reign it in.
When enough forces want
you gone, you're gone,
and that's what happened
with Pablo Escobar.
- [Narrator] There's
a pattern here.
A boss like Escobar or Capone
who lives life in the fast lane
is the boss who's
gonna crash and burn.
But what about the
opposite extreme?
A boss like Semion Mogilevich,
who doesn't just
keep a low profile,
he keeps no profile whatsoever.
- Nobody really
knows much about him,
and he certainly doesn't want
to have the world
know much about him.
He's had no difficulty
receding into the shadows.
In fact, he understands,
I think, intuitively
that it's best not to be seen.
- [Narrator] It's
Moscow in the 1980s,
and the collapse of the
Soviet Union is about to spawn
one of the most dangerous
mobsters in the world.
- The Soviet Union is in
a process of disarray.
The economy begins
to break apart.
- Life wasn't wonderful.
There was all kinds of
criminal activity going on.
You had to be extremely
careful as to who you trusted.
- [Narrator] In the chaos of
the Soviet Union's collapse,
1.6 million Jews decide
to fleet to the West,
taking with them only
what they can carry.
- There is a mass
migration of Jews
out of the Soviet Union
into Western countries
who would accept them.
- [Narrator] For up and coming
mobster Semion Mogilevich,
it's a golden opportunity.
He tells them he's Jewish,
too, and wants to help.
- [Semion] You can trust me.
- [Narrator] They'll need
money when they settle,
but they can't take
anything with them,
so he makes them a deal.
He will buy their assets cheap,
then he'll sell them
for market value
and send the profits on.
- This was these
families savings
because there were
no banks at this time
in the Soviet Union.
- [Narrator] According
to media reports,
they never see a dime,
but he makes millions.
- [Semion] Like taking
candy from a babushka.
(dramatic music)
- [Narrator] For
Mogilevich, it's seed money
for much bigger
opportunities to come.
With the fall of communism
comes globalization,
and for those with
the right connections,
it's a chance to do business
on an unprecedented scale,
whether legitimate or not.
- I was once in a state
jail with a Russian,
and we did business with
the Russians all the time.
They come from
tough environments,
so those guys are
different, you know?
They're good gangsters,
I got to tell you.
- [Narrator] Between
1990 and 1993,
crime rises 40% in Russia,
and the homicide rate
more than doubles.
- In the middle of this chaos,
we have the rise of
Semion Mogilevich.
- [Narrator] Mogilevich,
however, is not
your stereotypical
Russian gangster.
- When I think of Russian
mobsters, I think of someone
who's wearing like
bear-skin hat.
(bear roaring)
- Dudes in
wife-beater tank tops,
listening to electronic music.
(speaking in foreign language)
- The stars on the chest.
- Monotone and scary.
Russians are the scariest
white people on the planet.
(numbers ticking)
- Mogilevich is a different
kind of organized criminal.
He doesn't start as
a ruthless gangster.
Instead, he was a man who
was behind the scenes,
who pulled the strings
and moved the money.
Man has a degree in
economics, and understands
how the international
financial system operates.
- [Narrator] He's been
called The Brainy Don,
laundering dirty money
around the world,
but he doesn't stop there.
He begins to diversify
his criminal interests,
and by the mid '90s, is the boss
of an estimated 300 criminal
associates in 30 countries.
- He's involved in a vast array
of different kinds
of businesses.
He's not limited as Escobar
is to, say, cocaine,
or Al Capone is selling alcohol.
He actually spreads
his tendrils far,
from classical organized
crime, prostitution rings,
and extortion rackets,
and identity theft,
or even contract killing,
all the way to weapons
manufacturing, and
financial fraud.
- [Narrator] May 13th, 1998,
FBI agents swarm the
Pennsylvania headquarters
of YBM Magnex, a producer
of industrial magnets.
In the past four years, the
publicly traded company's stock
has risen from 10
cents a share to $20.
- And it turned out
that this company,
worth over a billion
dollars at its peak,
was actually a front
for a whole variety
of money laundering schemes,
and an audacious act of
organized crime in plain sight.
- [Narrator] In an instant,
(glass shatters)
YBM becomes worthless.
Investors lose $150 million.
(dramatic music)
The defrauded investors
are in Canada.
- [Man] What's this
fraud all about, eh?
- [Narrator] The FBI
raid is in Philadelphia.
- [Man] We need banker boxes.
Repeat, banker boxes.
- [Narrator] YBM's
supplier is little more
than an empty shed in Hungary.
(sheep bleating)
The mastermind behind it
all, according to the FBI,
it's Semion Mogilevich.
(Semion speaking Russian)
- Using complex
financial instruments,
very, very clever
accounting procedures,
he was able to take
the money and run
long before the
authorities were aware
of what was happening.
- That scam was a turning point
as it came to financial crimes.
Losing more than a
hundred million dollars
back in the 1990s
was almost an unheard of amount.
- [Narrator] It raises
the alarms to authorities
that they are dealing
with something new,
a 21st century boss
who can weaponize
the new globalized economy to
strike anywhere in the world.
- The very institutions
that drove capitalism
were being infiltrated in
rather extraordinary fashion
by a Russian mobster.
- [Narrator] Five years
after the FBI raid,
Semion Mogilevich is
indicted in the United States
for 45 counts of
fraud and conspiracy,
but hopes of apprehending
him hit a roadblock
thanks to a friend in a
very, very high place.
(dramatic music)
May 7th, 2000, Vladimir
Putin is sworn in
as Russia's president,
and ushers in a new era.
- Vladimir Putin, even
before he was the president
of Russia, made a point
to be on friendly terms
with transnational
organized crime
from the former Soviet
Union to his own advantage.
- [Narrator] Mogilevich
is welcomed by the
new ruling party,
and the Russian mafia.
- [Man] We have money
that needs cleaning, da?
- [Narrator] And his
influence is now worldwide.
In all, he controls
100 front companies,
and has bank accounts
in 27 countries.
- [Semion] Thank you, Vladimir.
- [Narrator] His net
worth has been estimated
at $10 billion.
- [Semion] That's
a lot of rubles.
- [Narrator] But the truth
is, no one knows for sure
just how big that number is.
(dramatic music)
- So in 2009, Semion
Mogilevich was put on the FBI's
top 10 most wanted list.
- [Narrator] But in 2015,
he is taken off the list
because without an extradition
treaty with Russia,
the FBI has no hope
of getting their man.
- In many ways,
Mogilevich is the sum
of many of the past crime
bosses that we've seen.
I mean, he brings some of
the ruthlessness of Capone,
he brings the business
acumen of a Lansky,
he understands the global
supply chains of a Khun Sa,
and, of course, Escobar,
but he also kept a
very low profile,
unlike other crime
bosses in the past.
So in a way he's a perfect
archetype crime boss
for the moment.
- [Narrator] The
Brainy Don stands
with some very unsavory giants
that have defined organized
crime over the past century.
- All five were, in a
way, men of their moments,
whether it was Prohibition,
or whether it was
a war on drugs,
or whether it was globalization,
or the dissolution of a country,
each one understood that
there was an opportunity
to be taken advantage of,
and each one successfully
seized it for a moment.
- If I was a crime boss,
I would get killed the
very first day, hours in.
I'm not cut out for
that type of thing.
- Living a life of crime,
but you're just stressed
out the whole time.
How is that fun?
- I am definitely gonna be
the quiet puppet master.
The real people you
need to watch out for
are the people who are
just like super quiet.
- You see how big my hair is?
I'd obviously be
the loud crime boss.
- I wouldn't want
people to know my face
or that they're getting
their orders from a woman.
- I would be like a quiet,
undercover crime boss.
I don't need people to know
that I'm crime bossing.
(dramatic music)