There are few undeveloped territories left on our planet. But perhaps the wildest and least explored are the world's oceans. Too large to control and without clear international legal status, vast areas of international waters have become havens of rampant crime. Slave traders and smugglers, pirates and mercenaries, thieves of sunken ships and buyers of confiscated goods, vigilant conservationists and elusive poachers, shackled slaves and illegal passengers abandoned to their fate. We are introduced to the inhabitants of this closed world by Pulitzer winner Ian Urbina, whose dangerous and fearless investigative journalism, often hundreds of miles offshore, formed the basis of the book. Through stories of amazing courage and cruelty, survival and tragedy, the author shows a global network of crime and violence that entangles the most important industries for the world economy: fishing, oil production, shipping.