Bootlegging All Over the World: Illegal Brews from North Korea to Pakistan
41:36 Share

ButcherBox, you guys have heard me talk about it before. It is a service that I used even before they were an advertiser because I like getting high-quality meat and seafood that I can trust online.

right to my door, 100% grass-fed beef, free-range organic chicken, pork-raised crate-free, and wild-caught seafood. We are only like a month and a half away from chili season. You're going to want to stock your freezer with a lot of meat that's not going to cost you that much at all. It's an incredible value. There's free shipping. You can curate it to customize your box plans, and it gets delivered right to your doorstep.

No more annoying trips to the grocery store or the butcher. It's going to save you time and save you money. Sign up for ButcherBox today by going to butcherbox.com slash underworlds and use code underworld at checkout to get $30 off your first box. Again, that's butcherbox.com slash underworlds and use code underworlds.

The land down under has never been easier to reach. United Airlines has more flights between the U.S. and Australia than any other U.S. airline, so you can fly nonstop to destinations like Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane. Explore dazzling cities, savor the very best of Aussie cuisine, and get up close and personal with the wildlife. Who doesn't want to hold a koala? Go to united.com slash Australia to book your adventure.

It's a balmy night in Ahmedabad, a city of around 6 million people in the Indian state of Gujarat and I'm off for a drink. Except alcohol is strictly forbidden here so I'm getting it from a bootlegger. - Wait, when is it gonna come? - Now. - Alright, alright. What does he want? - 20, that's about 20 US dollars, right? Actually, that's me messing up the exchange. It's actually around 50 bucks which is pretty stratospheric for a bottle of Johnny Walker.

But this is what happens when you're relying on the black market for your red label, even if it's quicker and more seamless than a DoorDash delivery. Of course, this is nothing particularly edgy. Residents rely on modern-day rum runners to get a buzz on in cities from Tehran to Timbuktu every day. But while Ahmedabad is named for a 15th century sultan, Gujarat's prohibition has nothing to do with Islam. In fact, it's a hangover of the fight for independence from Britain.

and in particular the later life aphorisms of the state's most famous son mahatma gandhi and from this thick web of bootleggers to organized crime deadly homebrew and even communal violence it's got a lot to answer for welcome to the underworld podcast

Hey guys, welcome to a brand spanking new episode of the show that unthreads the homespun of criminal activity all around the world. I'm Sean Williams, a reporter based in Aotearoa, New Zealand, and I'm joined by a documentarian, soundscaper, and all-round good egg, Danny Gold in New York City. How about those damn Yankees, am I right? Yeah, not a good season, but also very poetic intro. Like, probably the best we've had in some time. Well, I've had a lot of time to work, it's been a while. Yeah, it really has. Yeah, if you've...

If you've been tuning in regularly, you know we've kind of started and sputtered a bit with our comeback. And we're sorry for that, guys. It turns out contract negotiations are terrible. And I think I speak for us both when I say we never want to do them ever again. But I think we've figured this thing out. We're going to be writing the hell out of scripts for the rest of the year, which is great. And we're not letting up on the bonuses either. We've got mergers ever. And we might even be doing some extra cool stuff around video soon too. So in the words of a great man, we have had...

and are bounced, bouncing back, and we will bounce forward. I'd be amazed if the Americans get that reference, but the Brits are going to love it. Yeah, I mean, I have no idea what that is in reference to. But yeah, underworldpod.com, the website for the merch stuff, patreon.com slash the underworld podcast for $5 a month, or on iTunes, you can get the bonus stuff. And yeah, man, it really has been forever since we did one of these together. Yeah, so... Things were not working out, but...

Yeah. But now they might be. And honestly, I can't do it again. So definitely we need like a big promo stunt or something. Like, I don't think legally we can tell you guys to go graffiti, listen to the other world podcast on billboards and in bar bathrooms. But if that did happen, I wouldn't be opposed to it. I just don't think we can encourage that. We can't encourage it. We can't encourage you to do all of those things every day. No, we can't do that at all.

So you just heard me picking up some whiskey on the road from my last big reporting trip in India. And while I do think prohibition in India is really fascinating because I'm basically a nerd and also because I had no idea a Gujarat, a state of some 70 million people, by the way,

was dry before I set off there, which was a big, annoying moment. This show is going to be a bit of a bootleggy menagerie with tales far beyond the States and Capone to some niche abuse peddling tales you've probably never heard before. Yeah, you know, I was in a... I'm trying to remember the last time I was in a dry state and the time I really remember was I was in Khartoum in Sudan in like 2006. And I think...

You know, it was dry and the secret was that you were supposed to go to a Chinese restaurant and ask for tea in a teapot. And that was code for how to get booze. But I've also like...

you know, in the middle East and East Africa, I've had my fair share of like bootleg Johnny Walker. That's called like orange label or Jimmy Walker or something like that. You know? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, have you never been to a British pub? Cause we always order beer by saying, can I have tea in a teapot? That's, that's just how we do it there. And, and then also speaking of cartoon, I was supposed to go there years and years ago, probably around the same time. And I heard that there was a British embassy club called the Pickwick club where they

there was some like link to James Bond or something where James Bond had been inspired by it or something like that. So maybe that's still a thing. Possibly not now that it's literally under bombing attack. Yeah. Not right now.

But anyway, in this show, we've got coming up a bunch of bootlegging history, right? We've got a bit of America, a Scott in Saudi Arabia, the most perilous brewery in the world, Iranian-Armenian rocky runners, North Korean diplomats, and how prohibition and bootlegging brought about an execution and military coup in Pakistan. So that's a lot of info packed into one episode. But...

let's start with the basics, right? There are 11 countries worldwide that have blanket bans on alcohol, and you could probably have a decent shot at naming at least half of them, I reckon. You want to have a quick go? That's not rhetorical. Well, Sudan, I know booze is banned in Gaza because my fixer once was like, how do you not smoke on me a bottle of whiskey? And I didn't, I felt bad about it. Um,

Brunei, right? Maybe Pakistan? I mean, that's pretty much all I got. Yeah, yeah, you got a few of them. Yeah, you got Pakistan, Sudan, Saudi, Somalia, Mauritania, the Maldives, Libya, Iran, Kuwait, Brunei, and Bangladesh. And Afghanistan's not on the list, weirdly enough. Although, I can't imagine the Taliban are too thrilled about locals knocking back moonshine on a Friday night. Yeah, you might want to check the date on that list you have, because I feel like it probably needs to be updated. Yeah. Yeah.

And I don't have to tell you what those nations have in common, right? But I've had a beer myself in two of those countries and I know plenty of folks getting pissed in the others. Yeah, the Maldives people go there for like their honeymoon, right? It's got to be one of those things where in the Western, like Dubai, like in the Western hotels where I'm sure you can get plenty of booze and things like that. Yeah, in Dubai, there's a law where

You can get a pub erected there, but it has to officially be attached to a hotel. And there's one bar that I used to go to in Dubai that had like a tunnel underneath the pub that technically ended in a hotel. So they kind of flattered the rules, which is kind of funny. But anyway, pub quiz fact.

The first recorded beer rationing was detailed in ancient Babylon in the Code of Hammurabi, which is one of the most amazing artifacts of the Louvre, oldest set of known laws in the world, and it decreed, according to History.com, so let's hope this is correct, quote, a daily beer ration to citizens. The drink was distributed according to social standing. Labourers received two litres a day, while priests and administrators got five. At the

At the time, the drink was always unfiltered and cloudy. A bit of sediment would gather at the bottom of the drinking vessels. Special drinking straws were invented to avoid the muck. I mean, is almost 10 pints a day really a ration? It sounds like more of a target to me. It's like darts or Glastonbury levels of boozing. It's pretty nuts. Now, the actual word bootlegging itself, of course, doesn't come into use up until the 1880s in the American Midwest, and

And it describes the act of hiding flasks of liquor in boot tops when heading off to trade with Native Americans. Now,

Obviously, bootlegging doesn't truly come into its own until 1920. And that's when the 18th Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits alcohol sale across the country until it's repealed 13 years later in 1933. But there's like, there's bootlegging, right, where booze is illegal and you bring it in. And then there's bootlegging, right, where it's like moonshine, you know, like, like bootleg, right? That's two different things, right? Yeah, yeah. There's like, there's bootlegging and there's bootlegging, right? There's, there's kind of like all sorts of different kinds of the thing. And, and,

Of course, I mean, that amendment didn't actually stop anyone drinking, right? It just drove the whole thing underground. And you get the phenomenon of mobsters up and down the states making billions on the black market for booze, moonshiners making illicit drink at dark or under the moon's shine. No apocryphal background for that word. Here's a recipe for bathtub gin. Tell me if it gets your mouth watering. So,

First of all, you get a still and ferment a mash of corn sugar or fruit, beets, or even potato pills to make high-proof alcohol. Yum, yum. And then you mix it with glycerin. That's a compound made from vegetable oil or animal fat. And

And you give it a dash of juniper oil for flavor, but the taste is relative, right? This stuff is still like 80% proof or something. So you water it down by half because the big fat bottles you're brewing this slop in are too big to fit under the tap or full sit, sorry Americans, in the kitchen sink. You've got to dilute it in the bath

Hence, bathtub gin. I mean, I'd mix it with vermouth and Campari and have a night, you know? Yeah, those are easy to get a hold of. Now, if you're tending bar in a fancy speakeasy, you might add bitters or soda or fresh fruit. There's your cocktail, Danny. But it's pretty much like sticking lipstick on a pig, right? This stuff is rocket fuel.

Authorities seized almost 700,000 stills from 15,700 distilleries from 1921 only until 1925. That is an incredible number of them considering the entire population of America is barely 110 million at this point.

And of course, there are tons of loopholes, like the fact that licensed doctors can prescribe whiskey and other distilled spirits, and rabbis and priests are allowed to use wine for religious ceremonies, of course, which extends to something called a catch-all minister of the gospel, meaning you don't actually have to be dog-collared to get your hand on a nice pinot.

Then there's the quote home win loophole. Quote, the head of a family who is properly registered may make 200 gallons of wine exclusively for family use without payment of tax thereon.

And that means that families can make, but not sell or move, of course, around 1,000 bowls of wine per year or 2.7 per day for home consumption, which is, and I probably don't need to say this, quite a lot of wine. Oh, also a little trivia. You know, I'm working on this project about the Mafia in Milwaukee. And apparently the Mafia organized crime in Milwaukee didn't get...

Big in Wisconsin in general didn't get big or rich off prohibition because the area was so heavily German that people had just were just brewing beer on their own. There were all these like home distilleries and it wasn't really strictly enforced either because it was such a part of the culture that the organized crime aspects in that state at that time just like didn't make a ton of money off prohibition like elsewhere like Chicago or, you know, Detroit, New York.

Ah, that's cool. And as an even neater segue, uh, I think for the Patreons, we've got an episode, like a bonus show off the back of this one about a female rum runner in Madison, Wisconsin, uh, who was like really, really interesting as well. So I think we're going to bring that out like a day after this comes out. Um, Ben,

But anyway, there's tons of other fascinating bits about Prohibition came about. And we're going to go into the Germanic stuff here, right? So first off, there's piggybacking on women's suffrage. And then there's the rejection of so-called Germanic beer during the First World War. And then there's a bunch of nerdy evangelicals thrown in as well. But yeah, that's going to come in the bonus alongside someone that I just mentioned. She's called Jenny Justo. So watch out for that one, guys. That should be out tomorrow, I think, as you're listening to this.

So while we're staying in prohibition America, though, one thing you might know, and I didn't know how common knowledge this is, but it's widely thought that NASCAR, which for non-Americans is like hyper-powered stock car racing, might have come from the souped-up vehicles rum runners used to outgun cops with shady liquor in the trunk.

This is from the Mob Museum's website. Quote, Even before Prohibition came to an end in 1933, racing these high-performance cars became a popular pastime among the runners in North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia, and elsewhere in the South.

They raced each other's cars, many of them Ford models, on weekend afternoons out in the country on makeshift dirt tracks. Such were the bootlegger routes of the stock car and what would evolve into the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, or NASCAR, of course, in 1947. That's pretty interesting. Is that like common knowledge, Danny? Do people know about this? Is that like a thing?

Yeah, I mean, I don't know if it's like common knowledge, but I feel like I've heard that before, that that's how like NASCAR got started. That's super interesting. Kind of makes sense. If you're listening to a show about organized crime, of course, you're going to know all about Capone, Valentine's Day massacre in 1929, the outcry and the repeal of prohibition in 1933. There's no need to go into that here. But back to India now. So my dude on the moped selling Johnny Walker.

Part of the United States prohibition was claimed to stem domestic and sexual violence against women, and that is actually how the issue is still framed in large parts of India today. Gujarat is one of four Indian states, alongside Bihar, Mizoram and Nagaland, to outlaw alcohol. And if you listened to my bonus with Rohit Khanna recently about the brewing civil war in Manipur, you'll know where these places are, so you should listen to that. The constitution of India also allows for the ban, stating that it shall...

Endeavor to bring about prohibition of the consumption except for medicinal purposes of intoxicating drinks and of drugs which are injurious to health. Oh my God, I'm like reciting so many of these wordy like constitutional stuff. Anyway, technically you can get a drink legally in Ahmedabad. If you're active military serving in one of those many conflicts in there is fighting, you can get pissed as much as you want.

Is that why they're always brawling with the Chinese soldiers on top of that mountain? Sticks and knives with homebrew and cups of tea. Just getting hammered and get into a fist fight for an international incident at an 18,000 feet elevation. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's right. You can have that as fact. You can also get a permit, right? But that ain't easy or cheap. So first you get an authority like a hotel to sign a bit of paper saying you're you. I may have tried this, by the way, guys.

Then you take that to an official in a little booth who take you through the painstaking process to get a license. Then after a few more stamps and signatures, really like Indians love bureaucracy almost as much as Germans, you can buy alcohol from a state licensed store, which is often hidden underground in a way from view. So in my case, I went to this one that was in the back of a parking lot. It was so weird.

The whole thing feels like joining a mafia poker game and a decent bottle of scotch will set you back 60 quid, which is a king's ransom in a city where the average annual salary hovers somewhere around a grand. So drinking legally is only for the wealthy.

Now temperance, interestingly, gathered pace under Mahatma Gandhi, who became something of a conservative moralist in later life, something that if you've seen the Richard Attenborough movie from 1982, doesn't really get a look in amongst all the aphorisms and homespun clothes, just like the celibacy test he carried out on himself after his wife's death by sleeping in a bed with young naked women. You don't hear a lot about that, eh? Yikes. Anyway, alongside celibacy, Gandhi was a keen prohibitionist, and he claimed that liquor was a quote, invention of the devil.

It was often framed then, as it is today in India, as this domestic violence issue. Here's Gandhi again. The drink habit destroys the soul of man and tends to turn him into a beast, incapable of distinguishing between wife, mother, and sister. That is a wild, wild quote. When you really think of it, I didn't realize it the first time I heard it, but now I'm like, that is...

I don't know what he was drinking or how much of whatever it was, but that's not normal. I drank a lot and that's never happened to me. That entire situation that he describes is never something that has crossed my mind. I don't know. I have two glasses of red wine, two and a half glasses.

I'm like the most pleasant and charming I can be. I mean, three, three and a half, things get a little south, but never, never incapable of distinguishing between... Never bad news for a female family. Yeah, never incapable of distinguishing between wife, mother, and... That is the worst... I'm like, I'm appalled. Anyway, let's keep it going. Yeah, I kind of wanted to keep all this stuff in because I think people need to hear how much of a weirdo Gandhi actually was beyond the Ben Kingsley stuff. Anyway, the British can, of course, shoulder some blame for this.

Mughal Indians reeled at the drunken antics of British sea dogs who washed up on the shores of Madras, Bombay and Calcutta. That's amazing. I mean, it's great to know that even back in the day, just drunken Brits were overseas causing mayhem and just...

acting like a backward step in evolution even in like the wilds there's like loads of stuff in the books about a time with the absolute nightmares this was of course our time of high refinery in the palaces of Mughal emperors and the British were just seen as these uncultured heavy drinking hard shagging louts something that's totally changed over time

Yeah, I mean, maybe, but probably not. Anyway, Gujarat's had its ban since 1960, and that's when it was created out of the Raj era Bombay state. And while it's pretty much impossible to imagine a Bombay without its hard drinking Bollywood party nightlife, thundering Ahmedabad barely has any bars. By the way, the one at my hotel had pictures of beer and wine, but it only served Pepsi and fruit juices, which is tragic.

Of course, that doesn't stop folks drinking. It's a Reddit piece from way back in 2002, quote, Some say the annual turnover of the trade is 100 million rupees, that's like millions and millions of dollars, and it involves people from across the spectrum, right from the poor adivaces to senior politicians and bureaucrats. The huge amount involved, all of it unaccounted for, means that Gujarat today cannot ever afford to lift prohibition. There's just too much money and too many reputations involved.

Prohibition suits everyone even as it corrodes the Gujarati society by spawning corruption while emasculating the police and compromising the system. And the print another publication says basically that it's a really well-oiled network. The spirits are smuggled in from adjoining states, the process is lubricated with bribes to police and other senior officials, and they say no wonder the punitive system doesn't work.

So basically everyone's getting their palms lined and no one gives a shit.

The WHO estimates that half of all alcohol consumed in India is unrecorded and part of the black market. I mean that is a country of 1.4 billion people. And that means hooch and that means death. Last July for example illicit liquor killed over 200 people in three Gujarati cities alone.

During the pandemic, there was a trend of poor people in the state chewing on sanitary wipes, which don't Instagram your crimes, guys, but definitely don't suck on an alcohol wipe. I saw a guy in Somalia actually while I was reporting there, and he was addicted to doing just that. And half his cheek was just like burned all the way through. It's pretty grim stuff.

I remember reading something years ago about how a big problem in I think it was poor rural areas of Russia, somewhere in the north, and sort of using products that are alcohol, not for drinking, as ways to get hammered. And there was one where people were dying from drinking some sort of fuel or gasoline, and it was a freezing cold area, and what they would do is they would pour it like a long metal sheet or something metal-like.

No, it was that cold thinking that like all the impurities, the non-alcohol would freeze to the metal and then whatever was left would just be pure alcohol. Jesus Christ. And then get hammered off that and it was just like, you're just killing people. Do you follow the Instagram account? Look at this Russian.

It's just incredible stuff. I've seen some stuff up there. Look, we all got our rednecks doing silly stuff, but they got some good ones over there. A lot of them are friends with bears. I respect anyone who could become friends with a bear. Fair enough. You take the breath with this move, right?

So, prohibition, it screws the poor. That's what we're saying. It creates this entire criminal network and actually doesn't boost the economy elsewhere or even stop people suffering from alcohol dependency. So, nice work, Gandhi. You did a lot of good. But this is only one. Actually, there's...

Is that the mission of this podcast? Is like shit on Gandhi? Yeah, we've got, you just said 1.4 billion people and you're just insulting. Dude, I'm not, I'm not with, I'm anti, I'm anti Sean. I'm pro, I'm pro Gandhi. Don't listen. Our Indian listeners listen to us. Don't listen to Sean. I'm here supporting you. I know I've got caught up in my hate of the red coats and I've ended up crapping on Gandhi. Anyway, this is only one part of one country, right? Let's move across the Gujarat border into Pakistan. This is super interesting. Yeah.

Where in fact alcohol prohibition played a key role in one of the biggest moments in history and why the country today is actually controlled by its military. So we're heading off to the mid 70s here when the country was ruled by a popular, somewhat raffish Berkeley and Oxford educated barrister named Zulfikar al-Buto.

But he actually swaps his Savile Row suits for Charlois Kameezes and he electioneers in remote corners of the country that no politician has ever bothered with before. He promises a free press and Western liberties, but in truth he gives neither. And he rules like a classic European autocrat. All of these things, of course, enrage the nation's theocratic and military establishments. Yeah, I really need to better understand that country and that time. There's like a thing I'm chasing there.

for an episode in like the 70s and 80s that i just don't can't put put my head around because there's so much going like it's just a crazy time period um in that country i don't know i i i'd love to understand more but anyway continue yeah i mean this is when they're fighting bangladesh as well right it's just like insane what's going on in pakistan back then anyway in 1977 butoh is under siege from a right-wing coalition called the pakistan national alliance or pna

and communists, and generals in his own military, including this wily pencil moustache guy named Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq. Now Zia launches a dirty war against Bhutto, pushing for Islamicisation. In April 1977, Bhutto decides to throw the Conservatives a bone. He bans the sale of alcohol across Pakistan, he bans nightclubs, bars, and gambling, and he changes the weekly holiday day from Sunday to the Islamic day of Friday.

Now he's partial to a drink himself, Butoh is accused of rank hypocrisy and he says quote "Yes, I do drink alcohol, but at least I don't drink the blood of the poor." Jesus, take it easy chief. It's all a bit weird like mixed messages and it's too late. Zia makes his move in July that year, he starts something he likes to call Operation Fair Play, it's just a funny name, but and in fact it's a bloodless coup d'etat.

Butoh is toppled and thrown in jail over charges of murdering a political opponent, something almost all observers agree is complete BS. Not coincidentally, Zia has the backing of the White House, which is keen for him to forge closer ties to the Afghan Mujahideen across the border as they're gearing up to kick out the Soviets. Zia promises elections, but he never delivers, and he stays in power for 11 years before he dies in a plane crash.

Bhutto spends 1977-79 in squalid conditions in a jail in Raulpindi, which is right next to Islamabad. This is from India Today, quote, Bhutto, who was a near fetishist over personal hygiene and could dress like a dandy, had developed boils and rashes all over his body at the time he wrote the letter. His gums were swollen and bleeding. Cuss oozed from them. He was reduced to grovelling before the authorities for such basic amenities as dental equipment.

Now on April 4th 1979 Soviet troops are mounting in Afghanistan, the Ayatollahs are setting into the rule in Iran, Bhutto is hanged. His last words "Oh Lord help me for I am innocent" that's better than like you know it's cold or I'm scared.

1979. It's just like one of the craziest years in world history, right? That Billy Corgan really knew what he was talking about. Yeah. I mean, I'll work in some Stone Temple Pilots reference for the next episode. Don't worry. Jesus. Yeah. Anyway, Bhutto's ban has been in place ever since. But much like its neighbor, India, bootlegging is rife.

Here's the New York Times in 2016, quote, for Muslims in Pakistan, drinking alcohol is prohibited and talking about it is taboo. Drinking and denying it is the oldest cocktail in the country. And another one, quote, it's true that most people in Pakistan don't drink because they're Muslim.

but many more don't drink because they're Muslim and poor. Nobody abstains from drinking because it's prohibited by law. But that's a pretty neat piece. And actually, you talk to my in-laws, performer in-laws in Raul Pindi, that is definitely the case. Anyway, I know

I know they don't listen to this, so that's fine. Drinks get into Pakistan from two major sources. One is vodka from Chinese mules and mopeds across the frozen northern mountain borders. Yeah, if we get money, we're sending you on one of those trips. Please, please do that.

The other is beer and scotch carried on ancient dhows, which are sailboats loaded up on Gulf ports and docked in Pakistan's far west in the closed off region of Balochistan, which is its own episodes. Crazy. Writes Declan Walsh in a 2004 Guardian piece quote in the capital Islamabad diplomats in some Central Asian and African embassies are known to offer discreet takeaway service from their diplomatic compounds in return for a hefty markup.

I mean, of course, like that happens in embassies all over the world, right? But

In 2010, the New York Times made a short doco called Bootlegging Pakistan Style, which is great. It's on the reading list for this episode. You guys should definitely check it out. The journal heads up to Peshawar, which is capital of the region of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which is at the time controlled by the Taliban. And if you're a bootlegger peddling bottles of whiskey, which are the favorite tipple of the rich, the diplomatic and the military classes, well, you're screwed. They're going to shoot you on the spot.

So it's a pretty dangerous business, but by local standards, incredibly profitable. Bootleggers in the Kaiba Pak Tumwa can make between $5,000 and $10,000 a year, which is a giant amount of money there. The weirdest part of all of this is perhaps how Pakistan, in fact, Raul Pindi, which is exactly where Zulfiqar Bhutto was executed almost half a century ago, it's home to, quote, the most dangerous brewery in the world.

The Murray Brewery was founded in 1861 to keep British troops lubricated and it officially sells to the Christians, Hindus and Zoroastrians who are allowed a small quota of alcohol in Pakistan. And that's according to the Declan Walsh piece, quote, in theory. In reality, Murray products are selling curiously well. It's gin, brandy and whiskey products are also doing well.

And all this is despite this phalanx of official restrictions. And the explanation is simple, says Mr. Bandara, the CEO of the company.

99% of our customers are Muslim. Loopholes again. Muslims buying up Christian quotas and so on, but none of it can ever be as crafty as Murray's own slogan, eat, drink, and be Murray. That's pretty genius right there. Pretty good, yeah. Like that. Staying in Pakistan, right, because this is a smoothly scripted show with pro-level segues, we're heading to 2017 in Islamabad.

where the burglary of a diplomatic residence raised suspicions that officials of another nuclear-armed nation were moonlighting as bootleggers to get much-needed foreign currency. Which country is that? Well, yeah, of course, it's North Korea, right? Here's a Newswire piece from the time, quote, 2017. A burglary at the residence of a North Korean diplomat in Pakistan has raised suspicion that the envoy might have been involved in large-scale bootlegging.

Either that or the diplomat drinks a hefty amount himself as the burglars took off with 10,000 bowls of whiskey, beer and wine from Islamabad residents and it goes on.

In early October, the residence of North Korean diplomat Hyun Ki-yong was broken into. He reported to the police that burglars took off with two diamonds, several thousand US dollars, and a hefty haul of liquor, beer, and wine. Police and witnesses said they brought three cars and a small truck to plunder Hyun Ki-yong's trove of alcoholic drinks, which is worth more than $150,000 on the back market in a country where it is illegal for Muslims to consume alcohol.

If you've listened to our show on North Korea, this is also nothing new, right? Pyongyang regularly uses its diplomatic core to smuggle gold, counterfeit cash, and even meth across the world to claw back a few precious bucks for the Kim regime. In Kuwait, for example, North Koreans, diplomats, and imported construction workers this time around have been caught distilling liquor in their apartments and selling it on the black market, a practice that, you may have guessed in tiny Kuwait, is very, very illegal.

The liquor is called Siddiqui in Arabic, or my friend, and it is distilled from rice and has a taste similar to the Korean liquor, which is known as shochu.

Around 40% alcohol by volume. The drink is typically mixed with water or non-alcoholic beer. A liquor called My Friend is actually, I mean, that's great. I would drink that and soju is actually very underrated too. Soju is lovely, yeah. You get those like proper little isekaias in Tokyo. Oh my God, now I'm getting flashbacks to good times.

In North Korea itself, booze isn't banned, but there are still bootleggers there who proliferated in the 1990s during the country's devastating famine when money ran out and food rations dwindled. People bought food with the money earned and also used the leftover mash from the moonshine process to feed their livestock. Raising pigs also became another side job for them. Now, authorities are searching homes for misuse of something else: corn.

And that's according to a Radio Free Asia piece this March. Quote, many families in the neighborhood make a living making moonshine, which can be started easily with just 22 pounds of corn. One household was caught using 66 pounds of corn as ingredients for moonshine and family members had to write a clear letter of self-criticism.

But four households that bought more than 220 pounds of corn were accused of being anti-socialists who helped fuel the country's food crisis and were sentenced last week to more than a year in a correctional labor camp. Man, when misuse of corn is a criminal offense, you've got to just rethink your whole system. Things aren't working out if that's a big crime. Things aren't working out in North Korea. You heard it here first. Yeah.

A year in a North Korean labour camp doesn't sound like much fun, of course, but spare a thought on those caught bootlegging not alcohol, but Western media. In 2021, a man who sold bootleg copies of the South Korean show Squid Game was executed for anti-socialist activity by firing squad in front of 500 people, including his family and friends, and they were made to watch from the front row, which is ironically one of the scenes out of Squid Game, I guess.

Modern bootlegging then is a thriving, if perilous, trade. In Iran, for example, booze is smuggled by members of the country's Armenian minority, which has kind of coalesced into a roaring organized underworld. I've also like, isn't Iran supposed to have like a pretty amazing underground party scene too?

Yeah. I imagine there's got to be booze there. I know someone who's currently there and, uh, I can confirm where I probably shouldn't say anything on that. You know, that's the thing with like these countries, right? It's always people that are rich or like high society, even in these countries where it's dry, like usually they have no problem getting booze and drinking, like never, even in a really strict place like Iran or Sudan. Like I'm sure the elites like at their parties, they're, they're, they're boozing for sure. If probably a lot more stuff too.

Oh, 100%. But in fact, really interestingly, Iran, their currency has gone through the floor so badly that even the country's rich and famous struggle to afford Western liquor, right? And they have even themselves fallen back on this home-brewed Arak, which is stuff that the Armenians distill from raisins, and it sometimes had deadly effects.

In 2020, as COVID rattled through the population and Tehran controlled access to information, word got out that moonshine could cure corona. The AP reported that that year almost 500 people would die from alcohol poisoning, with the trend continuing until today. This June, which is what, a couple of months back, the head of Iran's forensic medical agency said that 644 people died from drinking tainted booze in 2022, which is up 30% from the previous year.

So we steer clear of most political shit on this show, but one thing is clear from all this research. Prohibition really does not work, least of all with alcohol. But to close out this episode, let's head from one Islamic republic to an Islamic monarchy, Saudi Arabia, to the tale of a Scottish bootlegger who bit off a bit more than he could brew. I spent a year living in the UAE, and so for the first two months of that year, work put me up in a pretty shit hotel. Yeah, I mean...

Fuck, sorry, do that again. I completely forgot. I spent a year living in the UAE like 12, 13 years back. And for the first two months of that year, work put me up in a pretty bad hotel. Yeah, I forget you've lived like, I mean, Oklahoma, the UAE, New Zealand. All the top places.

You're like a modern day adventurer who only makes bad choices. Though I feel like New Zealand's pretty rad, I imagine. Yep. And on a Saturday morning in this hotel right in Dubai, you could tell exactly who the Saudis in the hotel bar were, right? Because they'd be laying about from the previous night's drinking, scattered about as if they'd been on night long benders when actually they were hammered after a couple of pints because they just weren't ever doing it.

Gordon Malek, he must have seen this trend and rubbed his hands back in 1978. And that is when he moves from his hometown of Avonmore in the Scottish Highlands to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, which then was a low-slung scratch home to just 900,000 people. Now, by the way, it's 7 million. What is it about this show in the late 70s? Anyway, Gordon gets a job as a chef with a catering firm, and that gives him this privileged access to high rollers and businessmen all over the city of Riyadh.

Soon he's making moonshine at home, selling it for use at secret desert parties attended by expats. He's running a still from behind a fake wall in his villa. But while there's a bunch of low quality gin coming in from Bulgaria, quote, the kind people would go blind from, he tells the Scottish Mail on Sunday. He says, I always stayed with the genuine article.

And for that he means he gets access to good whiskey. Not long after his arrival, Gordon hooks up with some suits on a break in Bahrain. And they tell him they're looking to import high quality name brands into the kingdom. These guys had the capital to buy up to 400 to 600 cases at a time. And I had the idea of bringing it into the country in generators, he later tells the Daily Record. Quote, I was shipping out a quarter of a million dollars at a time. That's over a million bucks in today's money. Not bad at all for a rum runner.

Whiskey is Gordon's big seller. It's largely drunk at these desert secret parties arranged for these expats. And for six years, he ships huge quantities of the stuff into Saudi hidden inside these electronic generators. He says, I was a real entrepreneur because there wasn't any taste and quality before I arrived. I mean, Gordon's starting to feel like he's making the stuff. Anyway, then his whole world comes crashing down.

It was my last load into the country, he tells the mail. I'd become too blasé. It was all very heavy-handed. They arrived and put guns to my head. He's got fifty cases of whiskey at his place, so it's a fair cop, Gordon carries on. I was handcuffed and manacled, isn't that the same thing? And they shaved my head. They hung me from a tree with my handcuffs over a branch. They beat my feet, which were barely touching the ground.

After a few days, the authorities bring Gordon to a cell of Malaz prison in Riyadh, where there are 100 prisoners inside one cell. Lucky old him, though, he gets out after 17 months of negotiations with the British Embassy without taking any lashes, which is a common punishment then, not to mention getting your head cut off. He tells media that he's, quote, very nostalgic for those days. I made and spent two fortunes. What does Gordon do now? Well, naturally, he's a customs officer.

I don't know whether that's a good ending for this show or a bad one, but yeah, it will do. Yeah, that was well done, man. But yeah, I guess that bonus, people can look forward to that. Yeah, we're interested in stuff. I don't know what order we're going to do these in, but if we do it, this one will be first. I'll have something on the Zetas up next week. Or you've already heard that. Who knows? The world is a magical place. But yeah, I guess until next week, unless there's anything else you want to add.

That'll do for now. That'll do for now.