How an Albanian Mobster Derailed MAGA Island
About this episode
The episode explores the life of Albanian mobster Artur Shehu and his connections to crime and politics in Albania and the U.S.
In Albania's turbulent Nineties, the small, seaside town of Vlore became a gangster’s paradise, playing host to hundreds of crooks ferrying drugs, weapons and people into nearby Puglia alongside Italian mafiosi. One of them was a slim, slick-haired former military man named Artur Shehu, who amassed a formidable property portfolio across Vlore — most reckoned, due to his friends in the Sacra Corona Unita, Italy's “fourth Mafia.” But when a 1999 bar gunfight forced Shehu into hiding, only to reappear in Miami two years later, his life was sent on a wild journey that would collide, in 2020, with America’s first family. And its fallout would echo to the highest levels of politics, crime and controversy in Albania and far beyond. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More episodes of The Underworld Podcast
- The Biggest Unknown Drug Dealer in US History
- Shafted: How Cartels are Killing for Rare-Earths
- The Heroin Warlord of Pakistan: Armed Tribesman, the CIA, & a Smuggling Empire
- Russian Mercenaries African Drug Empire, Israel’s Sushi Mob war & the murdered Assassin: Stash House
- El Mayo Behind Bars: Cartel War, Conspiracy and Narcopolitics
- Empire of Blood: The Fall of the Godfather of Crime and the Green Gang
Explore listener stats, chart rankings, contacts and more on the The Underworld Podcast podcast page.