Behind the closed doors of government offices and military compounds, are hidden stories and buried secrets from the darkest corners of history. Each week, Luke Lamana, a Marine Corp Reconnaissance Veteran, pulls back the curtain on what once was classified information exposing the secrets and lies behind the world’s most powerful institutions. From the hitmakers at Wondery and Ballen Studios, we bring you REDACTED: Declassified Mysteries with Luke Lamana. The stories are real, and the secrets are shocking.

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With their leader sentenced to life in a Dutch prison, the most powerful heroin trafficking organzation in Europe, the Turkish-Kurdish Baybasin clan, wasn't about to call it quits. Younger brother Abdullah Baybasin set out to control the streets of North London with his feared crew of Hackney Bombers. But another powerful gang, the Tottenham Turks, and the met police investigators, had other ideas.

Two decades later, control of Europe's heroin market is once again facing instability, as the Taliban banning opium production in Afghanistan has set the entire market in flux. Hitman are roaming Europe, striking in Moldova, Barcelona, London and elsewhere. But it's not just massive amounts of heroin moving through Turkey anymore, as many of the gangs are connecting with cartels in Latin America and making the switch to cocaine.

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From a village in rural Turkey, Huseyin Baybasin emerged as one of the most powerful drug lords in Europe, setting up a global heroin trafficking ring. Stepping into the vacuum left by the downfall of the French Connection, Baybasin and his clan, dubbed "The Family," brought in billions of dollars of opium from Afghanistan through Iran and smuggled into Turkey before it headed to western Europe on the so-called Balkan route, all with the help of the Kurdish separatist militia known as the PKK.

But he wasn't just your run of the mill drug lord: Baybasin claims he was a Turkish government sponsored heroin trafficker as part of an intricate conspiracy, involving state secrets, a militant guerrilla group waging a 40-year insurrection, massive conspiracies and international intrigue involving the Turkish deep state, spy agencies of multiple countries including Britain, informants, billions of dollars, one of the most powerful criminal families in Europe and Asia, and control of over 90 percent of the heroin flooding into the UK. 

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When Bougainville fought an incredible civil war over a colossal mine, and won, its military leader emerged a hero. But he would soon fall under the spell of a conman and cult leader who wanted the Pacific island—and believed himself to be its king.

The unlikely pair soon carved an empire out of a coconut palm jungle—and a wild, picaresque myth about Eden, ancient monarchs, and gold. The wildest thing was that almost everybody in the region believed it.

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When a bizarre group of international gangsters shook on a massive meth deal with a DEA agent in Bangkok, Thailand eight years ago, it kicked off a manhunt ensnaring Hong Kong Triads, Outlaws bikers and an ex-US Army sniper’s band of contract killers. But the bust also shone a light on the shady drug network of North Korea, part of a crime machine fuelling the world’s maddest dictatorship. This is the story of how a war-torn Hermit Kingdom became a narco-trafficking, cash-counterfeiting, pimping Mafia state.

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Danny and Richard Wolfe were barely even teenagers when they formed the Indian Posse in their mother's basement with a handful of friends, but they had already been living the street life since they were in grade school, robbing, stealing and fighting. Never did they expect that within a few short years, the gang would balloon to hundreds and then thousands of members, taking shape in Winnipeg's poor and violent North End where there was no shortage of poor indigenous teens from broken families looking for brotherhood. Drug-dealing, pimping, armed robberies and murders went along with it.

The Indian Posse exploded into Canada's western prairies in the 1990's and soon came to dominate the prisons, enforcing their reign with brutal violence. This the story of how the Wolfe brothers founded the gang, and then succumbed to its violent nature.

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Jon Lee Anderson is an author and staff writer at The New Yorker. Anderson recently profiled Ecuador’s young president Daniel Noboa for a piece entitled “Ecuador’s Risky War on Narcos”.

Jon Lee spoke about his weeks long visit to the embattled nation, its place in the wider drug world, and how political movements across Latin America have metastasized into the biggest and most violent underworld on the planet.

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As Colombia's cocaine industry exploded in the 1980's, Pablo Escobar's Medellin cartel became the dominant player, capturing headlines across the world. But there was a second cartel rising up, one that operated more in the shadows and would soon grow more powerful - and more profitable - than even Medellin.

The Gentlemen of Cali were slick, sophisticated and always looking for a solution that wouldn't attract headlines. They fancied themselves businessmen and aristocrats, and as Pablo went to war on the state, they invested hundreds of millions into businesses and politicians all over Colombia. Though originally good-natured rivals, the Cali and Medellin cartels maintained decent relations...only they didn't.

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When gunmen ambushed a Mexican-Chinese businessman outside his Guatemala City casino in 2016, few outside the DEA paid much attention. But the shootout presaged the downfall of a man who, feds would later say, hadn’t just made a tidy living out of money laundering, but pioneered it.

But Xizhi Li, who grew up in the border town of Mexicali, was just one of a new army of Chinese money launderers who, tooled with millennia of underground banking skills, and China’s own economic policies, have become the go-to guys for Latin American cartels looking to wash their dirty cash. And with fentanyl flooding America’s streets, their work is becoming deadlier by the day.

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Something about Bum Farto, Key West’s fire chief, stunk. And it wasn’t just his red suits, bling and lime green company car. By the early 70s Florida’s farthest-flung outpost was a lawless drug enclave. And Bum was smack bang in its center.

((NOTE: This isn't just our best episode, it might be the podcast episode ever, in the history of podcasts.))

When the state’s governor dispatched a multi-agency task force to Key West, however, they stumbled on something far darker than an errant Farto. Out poured a world of murder, mafiosi and massive shipments. What happened next remains a mystery to this day.

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The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia fought a guerrilla war against Colombia’s government - as well as against right wing militias and drug cartels - for over four decades before signing a peace treaty in 2016 and then dissolving in 2017, though splinter faction known as The Dissidents still prowls the jungles. 

As the FARC were coming up, another violent group in Colombia hellbent on taking over territory was also growing: the country’s infamous drug cartels. In this episode, we’re joined by longtime cartel correspondent and frequent guest, author Toby Muse to detail the history of the FARC and what exactly was their role in Colombia’s cocaine trade. 

Toby is the author of Kilo: Life and Death Inside the Secret World of the Cocaine Cartels 

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