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 vessels have been seized, often by bad actors, and over the years he’s built a reputation for taking the kinds of jobs others turn down. Hardberger’s specialty is infiltrating hostile territory and taking control of ships in whatever way he can – usually through subterfuge and stealth. Whatever part of the world his missions take him, Hardberger thrives in its grey areas. Episode highlights:Host Ian Urbina takes us back to the beginning, when a young Max was teaching himself to sail and piecing together a living by doing odd jobs. That is until the gig that changed it all. After Hardberger successfully recovered a stolen ship from Venezuela, his phone just kept on ringing.Some of the most lucrative stealing happens in the world’s murkiest waters. Hardberger explains that his “sweet spot” is in extra-judicial areas, and walks us through his unconventional toolkit of tactics and tricks. He’s worked with sex workers, witch doctors, and many persuadable security guards. But we learn there are some laws even he won’t break, and some places even he won’t go. Urbina finally gets the chance to see Hardberger’s work up close, and follows him on a mission to Greece. There he hopes to repo a 261-foot freighter called The Sophia - but the job immediately proves to be more complex than even Hardberger expected. On this job, we find out where the repo man draws his line. “I like not getting killed … I like even more not going to jail in a foreign country.”
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49:11
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 investigation into the death of Aliou Candé, a young farmer and father from Gineau-Bisseau, puts the Outlaw Ocean team in the cross-hairs of Libya’s violent and repressive regime. In this stunning three-part series, we take you inside the walls of one of the most dangerous prisons, in a lawless regime where the world’s forgotten migrants languish. Ep. 3 highlights:Host Ian Urbina is detained, beaten and brought to a secret prison. He believes he is going to die. And still, he knows this is only “a sliver of what the migrants we are covering go through.”Urbina learns his team is being held in the same facility. They make proof-of-life videos as their respective governments intervene to get them out. Ian reflects on Western privilege and the lottery of birth. He, unlike Aliou, gets to go home. He also gets to report what he saw: a war on migration. A war with an army, a navy, and an air force. A war likely to spread as more poor, desperate migrants risk it all to reach safer shores.
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37:47
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 investigation into the death of Aliou Candé, a young farmer and father from Gineau-Bisseau, puts the Outlaw Ocean team in the cross-hairs of Libya’s violent and repressive regime. In this stunning three-part series, we take you inside the walls of one of the most dangerous prisons, in a lawless regime where the world’s forgotten migrants languish. Ep. 2 highlights:The EU has claimed they play no role in this migrant crisis, even as they provide boats, buses, petrol — even the tablets the Libyans use to count up their captives.Once captured and counted, those migrants are often held in a network of secretive prisons run by competing militias, where exploitation, abuse, and death are common. They are also routinely “rented” as everything from farm labour to soldiers in battle.Aliou Candé was sent to a prison, where he died at the hands of prison guards, while trying to protect himself from a melee. “I’m not going to fight. I’m the hope of my entire family.”
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49:07
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 investigation into the death of Aliou Candé, a young farmer and father from Gineau-Bisseau, puts the Outlaw Ocean team in the cross-hairs of Libya’s violent and repressive regime. In this stunning three-part series, we take you inside the walls of one of the most dangerous prisons, in a lawless regime where the world’s forgotten migrants languish.Ep. 1 highlights:On our mission to chronicle the anarchy of the world’s oceans, we knew we had to cover the Mediterranean crisis. The EU's shadow immigration system is a harbinger of things to come, as climate change and (often newly illegal) migration create the perfect conditions for a humanitarian crisis.The face of that crisis often looks like Aliou Candé, a 28-year-old farmer and a father of three children who hoped to lift his family out of poverty.To hear all episodes of Season 2 right now — early and ad-free — subscribe here.
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28:10
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 India; and the wild story of a modern-day James Bond — if he were a repo man. New episodes weekly on Wednesdays, starting on June 4, 2025.
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 tell stories powerful people don’t want you to know. As podcast reviewer Lauren Passell notes, “Ian’s not relying on research, he was there [...] Outlaw Ocean makes you feel like you’re there, too.” This immersive audio documentary series brings together more than eight years of reporting at sea on all seven oceans and more than three dozen countries.
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