Kingpins

Latest Episodes:

Kingpins Rewind: “Diamond Jim” Pt. 1: Vincenzo Colosimo Feb 23, 2020

Show notes

On the last Sunday of every month, Parcast Rewind replays a classic episode of Kingpins that you might have missed!

He had come from nothing, and yet had risen to become Chicago’s most feared and respected crime lord. Everybody knew “Diamond Jim,” and not just for his jewelry and that flashy three-piece suit he always wore. By 1914, Jim Colosimo controlled more than a 100 businesses in Chicago’s Red Light District.

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“The Untouchables” Pt. 2: Eliot Ness Feb 21, 2020

Show notes

With Al Capone finally behind bars, Eliot Ness needed a new fish to fry. His move to Cleveland, Ohio ended up reshaping his career in the police force, with a very unexpected ending.

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“The Untouchables” Pt. 1: Eliot Ness Feb 14, 2020

Show notes

As Prohibition amplified chaos in the streets of Chicago, federal agent Eliot Ness took to targeting the city's own mob royalty—Al Capone—in hopes of quashing the bootlegging that lined the pockets of gangsters and crooked cops.

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“The Zimbabwean Mastermind” Pt. 2: Paul Le Roux Feb 07, 2020

Show notes

At age thirty-three, Paul Le Roux had his hands in everything from gold to guns to illicit drugs. By early 2009, his pharmacy network, RX Limited, was bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars. But it was his doomed tuna fishing venture in Somalia that eventually led to his downfall.

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“The Zimbabwean Mastermind” Pt. 1: Paul Le Roux Jan 31, 2020

Show notes

He was an expert computer programmer and an early adopter of the internet. In the mid-2000s, Paul Le Roux made millions through online prescription drugs and helped contribute to the current opioid addiction crisis.

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Kingpins Rewind: Frank Lucas Pt. 1 Jan 26, 2020

Show notes

On the last Sunday of every month, Parcast Rewind replays a classic episode of Kingpins that you might have missed!

Frank Lucas found his way into the New York City underworld, and under the wing of a man known as the Harlem Godfather, emerged as one of the most powerful drug kingpins of all time.

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“Queenie” Pt. 2: Stephanie St. Clair Jan 24, 2020

Show notes

As the other Harlem policy bankers fall at the hands of Dutch Schultz, Stephanie St. Clair stood firm. Unfortunately for St. Clair, Schultz had political muscles and members of the NYPD on his payroll.

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"Queenie" Pt. 1: Stephanie St. Clair Jan 17, 2020

Show notes

When she was just a teenager, Stephanie St. Clair immigrated to the United States from the French West Indies without a penny to her name. By the 1920s, with $10,000 mysteriously in her hand, she opened up her own numbers racket and became one of the most successful racketeers in Harlem.

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"Queen of Ivory" Yang Feng Glan Jan 10, 2020

Show notes

Known as the “Ivory Queen,” Yang Feng Glan was a Chinese smuggler who helped move nearly 2-tons of illegal ivory out of Tanzania throughout the 2000s.

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Best of 2019: “Freeway” Pt. 2: Rick Ross Jan 03, 2020

Show notes

Here’s one of our listeners’ most requested episodes of 2019: By 1983, Rick Ross had risen to become the reigning kingpin of South Central LA. But when he made a deal with a new supplier named Danilo Blandon, he ended up getting into much more than he’d bargained for.

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