How a middle-class jock from a Texas border town became La Barbie, one of the most ruthless and feared cartel leaders in Mexico.

How two interior decorators took the fall for the Cali Cartel.

Customer feedback on the New York City coke dealing industry.

Baruch Vega ran a scheme that ensnared Colombian cocaine kingpins and gave him a life of luxury. Then one put a price on his head.

The author travels to Mexico to meet a retired assassin and kidnapper, now himself a target of the cartels that once employed him.

How a group of hippie surfers and a former Spanish teacher built the largest weed-smuggling empire on the West Coast.

The rise and fall of a chubby Idaho pizza delivery boy turned weed kingpin.

The story of September 26, 2014, the day 43 Mexican students went missing.

The Tarahumara became famous for running incredibly long distances. In recent years, cartels have exploited their talents by forcing them to ferry drugs into America. Now they’re running for their lives.

An anatomy of a failure.

How PCC, once an inmate soccer team and now Brazil’s most notorious prison gang, coordinated seven days of riots throughout São Paulo using mobile phones.

How the world’s most notorious drug lord was captured.

Previously: Patrick Radden Keefe on the Longform Podcast.

First they found his server, then they found his name. But if they couldn’t catch him with his laptop open, the whole thing would fall apart.

How Ross Ulbricht went from idealistic used-book seller to murderous drug kingpin.

The murder of a 34-year-old by a wig-wearing figure traces back to meth, an FBI sting and a former municipal judge who once sent a live copperhead snake to a foe through the U.S. mail.

Doug Dodd was a drug kingpin in high school. And now, like the narrator of a Scorcese film, he wants to tell his own story.

A man in Puerto Rico stumbles on a brick of cocaine, and rather than sell it he decides to bury it. Others, hearing his story, cook up a plan to retrieve it.

A white gangster immerses himself in Asian culture to lead a Chinatown gang. He even learns to pour tea correctly.

The transcript of chats between Silk Road boss Ross Ulbricht and a man he believes to be a Hell’s Angel who agrees to supply “hitters” to carry out 5 assassinations.

How an elite anti-narcotics task force became the most brazen drug thieves on the Texas border.

What does it take for heroin to grab hold in the small, remote towns of America? Like any business, it starts with one man and an entrepreneurial dream.

Bringing down a cocaine empire in 1980s rural Maine.

Fears of witchcraft leave a trail of dismembered bodies in Buenaventura, Colombia.

After 13 years of war, the United States has helped create a nation ruled by drug lords.