The World's Biggest Arms Trafficker Goes Down Hard

The Underworld Podcast

True Crime, Documentary, Society & Culture, History

4.6 • 871 Ratings

🗓️ 25 February 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

When Adnan Khashoggi, Saudi arms dealer and self-styled world’s richest man, met with US officials to discuss the Ayatollah, it may have seemed like a chance to cash in corporate power for political clout. But the affair — and an ill-advised friendship with the kleptocratic leaders of the Philippines — would send Khashoggi’s businesses into a tailspin, and land him jail. What came next was one of the most spectacular court cases of the era. And it finally shined a spotlight on the life and legends of a man whose lavish lifestyle was the envy of world leaders, and an up-and-coming Donald Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ready to launch your business? Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs. Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business with easy customizable themes that let you build your brand, marketing tools that get your products out there. Integrated shipping solutions that actually save you time. From startups to scaleups, online, in person and on the go.
0:22.0	Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you.
0:24.4	Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.
0:30.0	Ready to launch your business?
0:31.6	Get started with the commerce platform made for entrepreneurs.
0:34.8	Shopify is specially designed to help you start, run and grow your business
0:38.9	with easy customizable themes
0:40.8	that let you build your brand,
0:42.4	marketing tools that get your products out there.
0:44.7	Integrated shipping solutions
0:45.9	that actually save you time.
0:47.5	From startups to scale ups,
0:49.3	online, in person and on the go.
0:52.0	Shopify is made for entrepreneurs like you.
0:54.5	Sign up for your $1 a month trial at Shopify.com slash setup.
1:00.0	It's April 18th, 1989, in the Schweitzerhof Hotel, the most opulent lodging in the Swiss capital city of Bern.
1:10.0	53-year-old Adnan Khashoggi, arms dealer, media darling, dealmaker extraordinary and quote-unquote,
1:17.6	haremonger, has been invading authorities for years, jet-setting round the globe and surrounding himself
1:23.7	with some of the world's most beautiful and powerful people.
1:33.3	Serving a subpoena on the Saudi billionaire, one reporter quips, was like trying to swat a flyer with a rubber band. You never knew where he was going to fly next.
1:37.3	Khashoggi's involvement in the shambolic Iran-Contra affair sent Justice Department officials into overdrive.
1:44.6	But it's the Marcos'es, the corrupt first couple of the Philippines, who've landed
	...

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