01x04 - Crime Bosses

[bunniefuu]

(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

(expl*sive 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 g*ng

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,

(g*ns sh**ting)

it's a g*ng land hit.

70 g*nshots, 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 g*ng.

- 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 m*ssacre.

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, ill*gal,

racketeering organized

crime industry.

- [Narrator] Most

important for Capone,

the 18th amendment

has just passed,

making the manufacturer and

sale of alcohol ill*gal.

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 ill*gal, 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 expl*si*n

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 g*ng members.

(drums beating)

- So you have the Italians,

you had the Irish,

you had the Jewish gangs,

you had the Polish gangs,

the German g*ng,

and it created a vicious

climate of competition,

which essentially wreaks

havoc across Chicago.

- You know, guys are

rolling up with Tommy g*ns

and gunning in each other down

because they want

your territory.

(expl*sive booms)

- [Narrator] In 1924, the

Chicago suburb of Cicero

has 161 gambling dens,

123 saloons, and 22 brothels.

That's one ill*gal 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

m*rder 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 k*ll

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

k*ll 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 k*lled,

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 g*ng,

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.

(g*ns firing)

The hills are suddenly

alive with g*nf*re

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 w*r.

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 w*r,

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 b*llet

to the back of your head.

- [Narrator] In

his rise to power,

Escobar makes Colombia the

m*rder 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 k*lled,

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 k*lled 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 k*lled

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 b*ll*ts,

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 k*lling,

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 w*r 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 k*lled 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)