The Most Insane Prison Gang Ever: South Africa's Numbers Gang

South Africa's secretive Numbers Gangs almost defy description; they're one part cult, one part religion, and all parts violent psychopaths. Emerging originally as bandits preying on gold miners and policemen in colonial South Africa, they took shape in the brutal prison system of apartheid, where sometimes the only way to communicate was through stabbing whoever was around. What formed was something more than a gang, it was almost a shadow universe where every single interaction was governed by the archaic and complex rules of the 26's, 27's and 28's. And when apartheid crumbled, and South Africa's drug markets opened up, the numbers gangs traded in their generations of rituals and rules to merge with powerful street gangs and bring the grim reality of South Africa's torturous prison out into the world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Om Podcasten

Underworld exposes the secret world of transnational criminal networks that have flourished since there were banks to bust, drugs to smuggle, and scams to run. Journalists Danny Gold and Sean Williams bring their experience reporting on dangerous people and organizations to take listeners on a global tour of mobsters, warlords and crooks - from Brooklyn to Beijing, from the streets to the boardrooms - and everywhere in between. Underworld is a show about heroes, villains, and the barely visible mafias that affect all our lives, whether we know it or not.