The Outlaw Ocean
Where the law of the land ends, the story begins. Pulitzer-prize winning journalist Ian Urbina returns with a new season of his riveting podcast anthology, The Outlaw Ocean, which explores the most lawless place on earth — the vast unpoliceable ocean. New episodes starting June 4, 2025. In season two, Urbina sheds light on the secretive Libyan prisons swallowing up sea-faring 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 repo man. Urbina and his team repeatedly risk their safety to...
Episodes
S2 Bonus: Let’s go below the surface with host Ian Urbina
They say you should never meet your heroes. Daemon Fairless disagrees. He takes us behind-the-scenes on The Outlaw Ocean, S2, from his intimate vantage point as its story editor. Fairless begins by asking host Ian Urbina why he takes the ki…
S2 E8: The untold plight of North Korean workers (China Pt. 3)
Spread across the Earth’s oceans, the Chinese distant-water fishing fleet is the single largest armada in human history. This three-part series is an unprecedented investigation into their secretive fishing practices. The fleet is so gargan…
S2 E7: The unspoken cost of seafood (China Pt. 2)
Spread across the Earth’s oceans, the Chinese distant-water fishing fleet is the single largest armada in human history. This three-part series is an unprecedented investigation into their secretive fishing practices. The fleet is so gargan…
S2 E6: The undisputed superpower of the seas (China Pt. 1)
Spread across the Earth’s oceans, the Chinese distant-water fishing fleet is the single largest armada in human history. This three-part series is an unprecedented investigation into their secretive fishing practices. The fleet is so gargan…
S2 E5: The shrimp factory whistleblower
What started off as a dream job, slowly revealed itself to be a nightmare. Josh Farenello moved to southern India to oversee a shrimp-processing plant, but it soon dawned on him that he’d been really been hired as an American face to “white…
S2 E4: The repo man of the seas
Depending on who you ask, Max Hardberger is either a seagoing James Bond or a swashbuckling pirate. Hardberger runs a rare kind of repo service, extracting huge ships from foreign ports. His company is a last resort for ship owners whose ve…
S2 E3: A team of journalists at gunpoint (Libya Pt. 3)
The Libyan Coast Guard is doing the European Union’s dirty work, capturing migrants as they attempt to cross the Mediterranean into Europe and throwing them in secret prisons. There, they are extorted, abused and sometimes killed. An invest…
S2 E2: A place “worse than hell” (Libya Pt.2)
The Libyan Coast Guard is doing the European Union’s dirty work, capturing migrants as they attempt to cross the Mediterranean into Europe and throwing them in secret prisons. There, they are extorted, abused and sometimes killed. An invest…
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S2 E1: A war on migration, funded by the EU (Libya Pt. 1)
The Libyan Coast Guard is doing the European Union’s dirty work, capturing migrants as they attempt to cross the Mediterranean into Europe and throwing them in secretive prisons. There, they are extorted, abused and sometimes killed. An inv…
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Welcome to The Outlaw Ocean (S2)
In season two of The Outlaw Ocean, host Ian Urbina sheds light on the secretive Libyan prisons swallowing up sea-faring migrants; flagrant human rights abuses in China’s massive off-shore fleet; the horrors of a shrimp processing plant in I…
S1 E7: Epilogue — The Spell of The Sea
Covering two-thirds of the planet, the sea is a workplace for more than 50 million people. The oceans produce half the air we breathe, and more than 80 percent of the products we consume traverse the oceans. Aside from being vital, the ocea…
S1 E6: The Magic Pipe
When a ship inadvertently spills oil, it’s big news. But every three years, ships intentionally dump more oil than the Exxon Valdez, and BP spills combined. This episode highlights a vexing and woefully under-discussed problem. It is made p…
S1 E5: Waves of Extraction
The oceans are running out of fish. To slow down that problem, environmentalists pushed for fish farming or aquaculture. The problem is this industry became too big and too hungry. To fatten the farmed fish faster, they started feeding the …
S1 E4: From The Sea, Freedom
The sea has always been a metaphor for freedom – an escape from governments, laws and other people. This episode takes us off the coast of England to Sealand. A rogue “micronation” meant to embody this very freedom, which was founded on an …
S1 E3: Slavery At Sea
Ian’s account of his groundbreaking reporting on slavery in the South China Sea, the first time a reporter had ever made it onboard a Thai distant-water vessel using enslaved labour. Found shackled by the neck as part of the crew on a dilap…
S1 E2: The Dark Fleet
It would be hard to believe if it hadn't actually happened. The longest law-enforcement chase in nautical history, spanning 110 days and 10,000 miles, featured a bunch of vigilantes pursuing Interpol's most wanted illegal fishing ship. Slal…
S1 E1: The Murder Video
Crimes like this don't often happen on land. A 10-minute slow-motion slaughter captured by a cell phone camera shows a group of unarmed men at sea, possibly 15 of them, killed one by one by a semiautomatic weapon, after which the culprits p…
Introducing: The Outlaw Ocean
High Seas. High Stakes. High Crimes. There are few remaining frontiers on our planet. Perhaps the wildest, and least understood, are the world’s oceans: too big to police, and under no clear international authority, these immense regions of…