World's Most Dangerous Mobster: The Russian Mafiya Godfather

The Underworld Podcast

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 871 Ratings

🗓️ 16 September 2025

⏱️ 62 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

They say Semion Mogilevich is the most powerful gangster on the planet, the mastermind who rewrote the playbook for organized crime worldwide. Boss of bosses in the Russian Mafiya, with a hand in everything from trafficking nuclear material, arms dealing, narcotics trafficking, massive prostitution rings, multiple billion dollar frauds, hundreds of murders, controlling the gas and oil industry in entire countries and even art fraud. He's allegedly the closest thing there is to Keyser Soze...but is he REALLY who they say he is? We go deep on what's fact and fiction about a man wanted in half a dozen countries for pretty much every organized crime imaginable. DON'T FORGET TO BUY ASSET!!!: https://www.thatasset.com/underworld Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	May 1995 in Prague.
0:02.0	The most powerful Russian mobsters in the world are having a meeting in a Japanese restaurant called the Dove,
0:08.0	no doubt serving terrible sushi.
0:10.0	It's a gathering of 150 or so men and 50 or so prostitutes, a banquet of sorts,
0:16.0	a celebration for the birthday of the deputy boss of the Sultanev Skaia-Bratvvvvvv,
0:21.6	one of the largest criminal organizations in the world.
0:24.9	It's also the heyday of the emergence of the Russian mobster,
0:28.1	or more accurately, mobsters from former Soviet states.
0:31.9	The Soviet Union has fallen and organized crime has taken over in the power vacuum,
0:36.9	gobbling up billions of dollars and leaving thousands of dead bodies in its wake.
0:41.8	Law enforcement agencies around the world are taking note.
0:45.4	See, these mobsters are expanding outward at a furious pace,
0:49.7	tying in western businesses and banks,
0:52.1	solidifying their control in countries like Hungary, Ukraine,
0:55.5	and the Czech Republic. By 1995, Prague is a haven for Russian mavosos. Fresh off winning brutal
1:02.6	street wars over control of the gas and oil rackets in Eastern Europe worth billions of dollars.
1:08.6	The police in Prague know this, and they're on their guard. So when
1:12.5	they get a tip-off about this massive Russian mafia dinner, they act. In the middle of the dinner,
1:18.0	while a singer is performing, commandos were pelt down from the ceiling and rushed the doors,
1:23.1	heavily armed, kidded out, expecting a bloodbath. Fifty elite cops are there in total, guns drawn.
1:30.5	At first, the Russian gangsters think it's a part of the show, a practical joke.
1:35.4	But they soon realize it's definitely not as they're handcuffed and lined up against the wall.
	...

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