The Outlaw Ocean Podcast
High Seas. High Stakes. High Crimes.
The Outlaw Ocean is a riveting anthology podcast that explores the most lawless place on earth — the vast unpoliceable ocean.
Created and produced by The Outlaw Ocean Project. From CBC Podcasts.
Season 2
In season two, Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Ian Urbina sheds light on the secretive Libyan prisons swallowing up seafaring migrants; flagrant human rights abuses in China’s massive off-shore fleet; the horrors of a shrimp processing plant in India; and the wild story of a modern-day James Bond — if he were a ship repo man.
Episode 1
A War on Migration, Funded by the EU
A journey into Europe’s shadow immigration system through the story of Aliou Candé, a young father caught in a growing humanitarian crisis.
Episode 2
A Place ‘Worse Than Hell’
Though the EU denies involvement, it supplies the tools for a brutal system where migrants like Aliou Candé are detained, exploited, and sometimes killed.
Episode 3
A Team of Journalists at Gunpoint
Detained and beaten in Libya, journalist Ian Urbina confronts the brutal realities migrants face—and the privilege that lets him walk free.
Episode 4
The Repo Man of the Seas
Max Hardberger reclaims stolen ships with stealth and subterfuge, operating in the legal grey zones of global waters.
Episode 5
The Shrimp Factory Whistleblower
An American manager blows the whistle on a shrimp factory in India where workers, mostly women, are trapped in a system of forced labor and abuse.
Episode 6
The Undisputed Superpower of the Seas
A rare look inside Chinese-run fishing vessels where abuse is rampant and death is routine—until one survivor’s story forces the truth to the surface.
Episode 7
The Hidden Cost of Seafood
A four-year investigation uncovers forced Uyghur labor deep in the seafood supply chain—raising urgent questions about what we’re really paying for at the dinner table.
Episode 8
The Untold Plight of North Korean Workers
Despite UN sanctions, North Korean forced labor thrives in China—feeding global seafood supply chains and reaching brands like Walmart and McDonald’s and Sysco, the largest food distributor on the planet.
Season 1
The first season of The Outlaw Ocean podcast is a seven-part series that explores a gritty and lawless realm rarely seen, populated by traffickers and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, wreck thieves and repo men, vigilante conservationists and elusive poachers, seabound abortion providers, clandestine oil dumpers, shackled slaves and cast-adrift stowaways.
Relying on more than eight years of reporting on all seven oceans and in more than three dozen countries, the podcast brings all of The Outlaw Ocean Project's journalism together as an immersive podcast series.
Episode 1
The Murder Video
An eight-year investigation of a slow-motion slaughter caught on camera and the seedy world of floating armories populated by heavily-armed mercenaries.
Episode 2
The Dark Fleet
The longest law enforcement chase in nautical history and, in North Korean waters, the world's largest fleet of illegal fishing vessels.
Episode 3
Slavery at Sea
The global plight of sea slavery and the harrowing story of Lang Long, a victim of the nightmarish world of debt bondage in the Thai fleet.
Episode 4
From the Sea, Freedom
An exploration of sea mavericks, from a libertarian who created a micronation at sea to a gynecologist who operates a clandestine medical ship providing abortion access to women.
Episode 5
Waves of Extraction
A trip to Gambia to learn how fishmeal is meant to slow the depletion of fish from the seas but is actually accelerating the problem.
Episode 6
The Magic Pipe
Ships intentionally dump more oil into the oceans every three years than the amount spilled in the BP and Exxon Valdez accidents combined.
Episode 7
The Spell of the Sea
“The ocean is outlaw not because it is inherently good or bad but because it is a void, like silence is to sound or boredom is to activity.”
Recognition
All 13 awardsDigital Media Awards Global
Dan Rather Medal for News and Guts
Podcast & Radio Award
Book and Journalism Award
Digital Media Awards Americas
Best in Business
EPPY
Signal Awards
Gold Radio Award
Grand Radio Award