4. The Northern Powerhouse
Gangster
BBC
4.7 • 1.6K Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2026
⏱️ 32 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
By the 1980s, Georgie Pai has been arrested in Glastonbury for overstaying a tourist visa, found guilty of terrorising Chinese communities in Southampton, and deported back to Hong Kong. But borders are no barrier for a man with the right connections. He slips back into Britain and continues to expand his empire.
Manchester becomes his nerve centre as police begin building a database of suspected Triad gangsters. But with Wo Shing Wo’s growing power comes a rising tide of violence. One of Georgie Pai’s associates is brutally attacked with machetes, a warning that it is far from an isolated incident. Across the UK, violent clashes between rival Triad factions are becoming alarmingly common, each gang carving up territory in a bloody, escalating turf war.
Presenter: Livvy Haydock Series Producer: Hayley Mortimer Technical Producer: Richard Hannaford Producers: Patrick Kiteley & Matt Toulson Fixer in Hong Kong: Michelle Chan Music: Andy Simms and Reliable Source Music Journalism Assistants: Hattie Valentine & Ellie Dover Commissioning Producer: Sam Proffitt  Commissioning Executive: Lorraine Okuefuna and Louise Kattenhorn Commissioning Editor: Richard Maddock Editor and Executive Producer: Clare Fordham
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts. |
| 0:07.0 | An early start here. It's time to kick off. |
| 0:10.0 | Your day. Morning! |
| 0:11.9 | What a line-up. |
| 0:13.3 | Oh, thanks very much. We do get some great guests on the show. |
| 0:16.1 | The crowd is loving this. |
| 0:18.3 | Thanks, guys. Thank you. Too kind. |
| 0:20.2 | From morning chaos to match day commentary. |
| 0:23.6 | And everything in between. |
| 0:25.0 | BBC Sounds packed with personality. |
| 0:28.8 | Episodes of Gangster are released weekly, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. |
| 0:33.8 | But if you can't wait, you can listen to the whole series right now, first on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:41.4 | You're about to listen to Gangster, the story of Georgie Pye. |
| 0:47.1 | Episodes will be released weekly wherever you get your podcast. |
| 0:51.3 | If you're in the UK, you can listen to the whole series right now, first, |
| 0:56.6 | on BBC Sounds. A quick warning. This episode contains graphic descriptions of violence. |
| 1:07.4 | Those days, Trantan and So-ho, people think it's kind of a city place |
| 1:12.5 | because you still see a lot of red light business running in Chinatown. |
| 1:17.4 | If you speak to people in London's Chinatown, they'll tell you it's changed. |
| 1:23.9 | 50 years ago, Soho was the city's underbelly. |
| 1:28.3 | It had 54 sex shops, 39 sex cinemas and 16 strip clubs. |
| 1:35.3 | Quite daunting for people who just come to the UK and then come to China and then you can see all the bad things going on. |
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