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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.

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Speaker 2: Our colleague Noel is not here today, but will be

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Speaker 2: rejoining us shortly.

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Speaker 1: They call me dead. We're joined as always with our

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Speaker 1: super producer Paul Mission control decad. Most importantly, you are you,

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Speaker 1: You are here, and that makes this the stuff they

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Speaker 1: don't want you to know. Matt, are you a Are

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Speaker 1: you a fan of canned seafood? I was talking to

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Speaker 1: Paul earlier this evening about this.

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Speaker 2: Yes, I actually really am back in the old house.

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Speaker 2: Stuff works days. I would either bring a can of

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Speaker 2: soup for my lunch or one of those it's like

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Speaker 2: a It would be tuna and like some crackers, and

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Speaker 2: I think a little Mayo. That was a little mint, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: because I could afford it until I realized how much

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Speaker 2: salt was in the soup and some things about the

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Speaker 2: canned food industry.

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Speaker 1: Here we go, right, Yeah, man, I remember this as well,

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Speaker 1: like I well, also for everyone listening, Matt and I

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Speaker 1: often in our earlier days, in our salad days, Matt

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Speaker 1: and I could not afford salad, so so we would

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Speaker 1: we would get what are essentially civilian rations, you know,

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Speaker 1: you know, and sometimes they'd spice it up right. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: you could get the tuna retort pack with a little

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Speaker 1: bit of hobanaro in it, a little bit of halapangno

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Speaker 1: in it. Uh. And we we ate these things while

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Speaker 1: we were breaking our hearts making crazy crazy stuff on

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Speaker 1: the internet. Uh, Matt, you never stopped. We've never stopped

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Speaker 1: breaking our hearts. And our pal Matt, you remember our

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Speaker 1: pal Scott Benjamin right from car stuff. He famously doesn't

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Speaker 1: doesn't get music and also does not like seafood. Uh.

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Speaker 3: Do you know.

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Speaker 1: Anyone else that doesn't care for seafood?

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Speaker 2: Oh? No, no, my son. Gosh, you guys, this is

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Speaker 2: if you want to know something that will break the bank.

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Speaker 2: Have an almost eight year old that decides he loves sushi?

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Speaker 2: What because how do you how do you tell him? No,

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Speaker 2: I'm just shugging.

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Speaker 1: I do like sushi though, yeah.

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Speaker 2: He does, and not the not the kind that I

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Speaker 2: that I should be buying. Anyway, It's it's tough. It's

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Speaker 2: tough out here for the sushi, dad, What.

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Speaker 3: It's tough out here for the sushi dad. Also, also,

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Speaker 3: sushi is uh. Sushi is reliant on freshness, right, yeah,

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Speaker 3: so so can tuna. Sushi is more TikTok flex then

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Speaker 3: something you would see at that fancy restaurant. Funny story,

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Speaker 3: while we're while we're in our seafood disclosure. One time,

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Speaker 3: years and years ago, Matt, I learned about the best

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Speaker 3: sushi restaurant in Atlanta because you told me the day

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Speaker 3: after you accidentally walked in.

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Speaker 2: Wait, what is it? Is it the Kura Revolving Sushi Place?

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Speaker 1: No, no, no, like it was a big deal. I

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Speaker 1: still have it gone. I don't know if I can

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Speaker 1: afford it.

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Speaker 2: Oh, Okay, Kura is my jam. Revolving sushi is the thing, man,

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Speaker 2: it's I love the thing.

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Speaker 1: I love it. I love the I love the little

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Speaker 1: conveyor belt, you know what I mean. I love the

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Speaker 1: gamification of it.

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Speaker 2: Right, if you're good at it, you can trick the system.

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Speaker 2: Not what spending too much money. You figure it out.

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Speaker 2: Just you eat the expensive stuff that's just the same

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Speaker 2: price as the not expensive stuff.

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Speaker 1: Okay, right on, right on, bro. But like, so, seafood's

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Speaker 1: not for everyone, but the people who like it, like Matt,

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Speaker 1: like me, and like many of us listening tonight, people

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Speaker 1: who like seafood love it. In the US alone, canned

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Speaker 1: or tinned fish sales were estimated to be around nine

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Speaker 1: point five billion dollars, No twenty two. Wow, okay, that's

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Speaker 1: a lot of that's a lot of cans.

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Speaker 2: You know, well, think about the number of fish that equals, right, Like,

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Speaker 2: that's a ton of fish to be processed in canned

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Speaker 2: and then eaten. Wow. Okay.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, And especially considering, as we'll find this evening that

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Speaker 1: many of the it's kind of like how the Europeans

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Speaker 1: were when they were when they were scarfing up buffalo.

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Speaker 1: They don't use all of the fish, right, Only specific

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Speaker 1: parts of a maritime organism make it into the can,

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Speaker 1: and people love it. Apparently, the canned fish sales in

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Speaker 1: the US are anticipated to reach seventeen point two billion

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Speaker 1: dollars over the next decade. It's massive.

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Speaker 2: Well, okay, now just quickly hear from my math, and

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Speaker 2: I'm thinking back to the how stuff works. Times. I

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Speaker 2: did buy that stuff a lot in bulk when I

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Speaker 2: couldn't afford other foods, when you know, like right out

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Speaker 2: of college working, you know, first job kind of stuff.

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Speaker 1: So other than ramen noodles, right.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, oh yeah, no for sure. But I wonder how

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Speaker 2: much of that is a global shift, or at least

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Speaker 2: a US shift towards not being able to afford other

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Speaker 2: kinds of foods. Right, And we know this, We know

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Speaker 2: the squeeze is on for everybody when it comes to

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Speaker 2: just making your dollars go a little bit further. That

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Speaker 2: would make sense if they're anticipating a huge growth like that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed. And the problem is, like we always say,

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Speaker 1: when you get to a certain threshold of finance, you

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Speaker 1: get to inevitable corruption. There is something forgive.

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Speaker 3: Us fishy about the about the seafood industry.

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Speaker 1: Matt, I apologize to you for that one.

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Speaker 2: Uh, I guarantee you it will not be the last

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Speaker 2: one in this episode.

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Speaker 1: Ook good. Yeah, you're gonna come with some fire as well.

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Speaker 1: I think we're going to give a shout out to

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Speaker 1: my girlfriend Brandy Supra, who hipped us to this, this

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Speaker 1: absolutely unclean thing. There is a conspiracy at the heart

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Speaker 1: of canned seafood, ready made seafood. If you are walking

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Speaker 1: through a Walmart or you're walking through a Tesco, there

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Speaker 1: is some stuff they don't want you to know. Here

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Speaker 1: are the facts.

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Speaker 2: Yes, So this concept of preserving seafood in a tin

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Speaker 2: a can of some sort has been around for a

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Speaker 2: long time. It's a technology, let's say, that really made

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Speaker 2: its strides in the eighteen hundreds, and human beings have

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Speaker 2: been eating seafood in this way for a long time,

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Speaker 2: largely because again, fish is something you need to either

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Speaker 2: eat fresh or find a way to preserve it as

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Speaker 2: soon as you catch it, right. So that's why you know,

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Speaker 2: the behemoths of the industry grew so much when they did.

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Speaker 2: Because as soon as you've got a good setup where

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Speaker 2: there's fresh fish coming in and you've got a facility

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Speaker 2: where you can process that fish and get it in

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Speaker 2: these cans and get it on a shelf somewhere, it'll

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Speaker 2: last for a decade. I mean, at least some of

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Speaker 2: the techniques have improved, but you can this stuff has

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Speaker 2: a crazy long shelf life. So once you get started, boom.

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Speaker 1: You're in. Yeah, man, And canneries are weird. For anyone

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Speaker 1: living outside of the US, or for anyone who has

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Speaker 1: lived off the grid in the US, you should know

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Speaker 1: that canneries are one of the easiest ways to make

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Speaker 1: off the book's money. You will just be in a

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Speaker 1: really gross situation for a season and then you can

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Speaker 1: be on your way to your rainbow gathering or hop

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Speaker 1: a freight or what have you. Matt, what you point

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Speaker 1: out is that you and I were kind of early adopters,

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Speaker 1: childhood adopters of this sort of preparation.

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Speaker 2: Well, our parents. I don't know about your parents, but

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Speaker 2: my parents had always had tuna in the house, can

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Speaker 2: tuna and we it would be a part of a meal,

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Speaker 2: like a family meal once or twice a week.

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Speaker 1: Did you guys do like tuna casserole?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly, the whatever whatever those things were called

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Speaker 2: back in the day. Just add the tuna and it's

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Speaker 2: got the you know, the noodles in a box or

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Speaker 2: whatever in your tuna helper. That's it. That's the stuff.

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Speaker 2: But I wonder how much of it is a generational thing,

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Speaker 2: because you know, that's eighties to nineties for me, like

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Speaker 2: up into about the year two thousand and I wonder

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Speaker 2: how much of that fell away as the generational shift

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Speaker 2: you know, is coming into our us being parents now, right,

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Speaker 2: Because I don't serve my son in a lot of

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Speaker 2: canned fish.

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Speaker 1: And as the templar said to Indiana Jones, you have

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Speaker 1: chosen wisely. So, yeah, let's look at this. I love

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Speaker 1: this timeline man. So twenty twenty twenty, nineteen, twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: another pandemic hits we again. We get a lot of

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Speaker 1: love on this show for quote unquote predicting that, but

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Speaker 1: we just looked at the math and it was statistically inevitable.

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Speaker 1: The next one is also statistically inevitable. In twenty twenty,

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Speaker 1: a lot of people were surprised, I can't go out anymore.

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Speaker 1: You know, my institutions upon which I rely are failing.

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Speaker 1: So the folks who used to shop at a grocery

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Speaker 1: store as just sort of civilian level people, all of

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Speaker 1: a sudden started thinking a little more in terms of preparation,

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Speaker 1: in terms of if things go sideways, will I have

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Speaker 1: enough to eat until the rule of law returns? And

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Speaker 1: so they bought a lot of cad fish. Cadfish reached

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Speaker 1: this massive like Mariah carry at Christmas level of popularity.

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Speaker 1: And then amid all this, there was a TikTok what

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Speaker 1: do we call it, a trend, a TikTok trend that

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Speaker 1: went viral.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, did you see this one. Oh, I did see

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Speaker 2: this one. This was a concept of creating like a

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Speaker 2: charcuterie board sharcuterie. I don't know how to say that whatever.

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Speaker 2: I don't have enough of them to pronounce it often

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Speaker 2: enough to know how to say it. So, but it's

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Speaker 2: the thing where you get a board and you put

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Speaker 2: a bunch of meats and cheeses and stuff on it,

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Speaker 2: and olives maybe if you're real fancy. But in this case,

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Speaker 2: it was different cans of different fish right with that

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Speaker 2: are canned in different substances, some in water, some in oils,

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Speaker 2: some in tears. I guess, I don't know, foreshadowing a bit,

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Speaker 2: m yes, But it was just a very popular thing.

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Speaker 2: I don't know how much we can say that TikTok

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Speaker 2: contributed to it. I think, Ben, what your point about?

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Speaker 2: Just everybody was seeing a potential future that not everyone

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Speaker 2: had thought about, right, I can always go to the

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Speaker 2: grocery store.

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Speaker 4: We all thought, yeah, yeah, oh gosh, what will you

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Speaker 4: do when you walk in the grocery store and nothing's

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Speaker 4: on the shelf.

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Speaker 1: Americans are not familiar with that experience, by and large,

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Speaker 1: What will you do when the grocery stores close their doors? Right,

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Speaker 1: shout out to Stickman. The point is this is a

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Speaker 1: big business. You don't have to like seafood to be

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Speaker 1: affected by the seafood industry. And we've talked in the

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Speaker 1: past about overfishing, ocean acidification, all these kinds of things.

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Speaker 1: They're very unsexy conspiracies because they are true and they

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Speaker 1: are happening now as you listen this evening, Matt, I

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Speaker 1: want to shout you out and ask you a little

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Speaker 1: bit more about some of the shenanigans you found regarding

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Speaker 1: price fixing. Price fixing for ten seafood accelerate it during

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Speaker 1: the pandemic and originated before people started panicking, especially with

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Speaker 1: of course the like the most popular canned seafood in

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Speaker 1: the United States can tuna. You know, are you getting

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Speaker 1: alba core? Are you getting the fancy one? Oh?

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Speaker 2: I don't know. It was usually it said like, what

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Speaker 2: chunk tuna? Something chunk tuna, that's all I remember.

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Speaker 1: The Chicken of the sea.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so Chicken of the sea, Bumblebee Tuna and Starkist

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Speaker 2: are the three big canned tuna manufacturers. For a long

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Speaker 2: time they controlled eighty percent of the market share, so

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Speaker 2: eighty percent of all can tuna was those three companies.

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Speaker 2: One of those three in the US or in the world.

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Speaker 2: That was at least that was in the US for sure,

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Speaker 2: And there's several other major companies like in South Korea, Thailand,

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Speaker 2: several other places that are that have huge like global

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Speaker 2: market shares. I guess, but if you're in the US

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Speaker 2: and you're buying tuna for a long time, there's an

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Speaker 2: eighty percent chance it was one of those. And in

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Speaker 2: twenty fifteen they got looked at by the Department of

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Speaker 2: Justice for doing some really strange, not cool things, basically

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Speaker 2: functioning as a cartel. From twenty eleven to twenty thirteen,

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Speaker 2: there were several lawsuits, There were lots and lots of

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Speaker 2: fines paid. We could probably do a whole episode just

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Speaker 2: on this, but Chicken of the Sea basically gave up.

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Speaker 2: You know, I've got a bunch of stuff in here, Ben,

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Speaker 2: But Chicken of the Sea the company basically said, yeah,

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Speaker 2: we're guilty of doing this kind of stuff, working with

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Speaker 2: the heads of Bumblebee to price fix, working with the

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Speaker 2: heads of Starkist to do the same thing, putting fewer

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Speaker 2: what was it, they would put five ounces of their

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Speaker 2: fish in their six ounce can.

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Speaker 1: Oh shklation, right, they.

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Speaker 2: Would make up for it in the liquid that was

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Speaker 2: put into those Oh and just that whole concept of

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Speaker 2: price fixing. They were making sure that no company was offering.

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Speaker 2: Do you remember back in the day you could get

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Speaker 2: like ten cans of tuna for ten bucks. If you

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Speaker 2: bought ten cans, you could spend ten bucks on it,

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Speaker 2: and that's it. But then those prices started going up,

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Speaker 2: and it was right around the time when we started

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Speaker 2: our YouTube channel, ben telling you twenty eleven to twenty thirteen.

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Speaker 2: Oh but anyway, there's a whole bunch you could read

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Speaker 2: on this. I would highly recommend checking out. Let's see,

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Speaker 2: there was a Washington Post article from twenty seventeen. Here's

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Speaker 2: the title, three popular tuna brands conspired to fix prices,

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Speaker 2: court records allege. It's by Peter Horisky and it's a

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Speaker 2: fantastic read. Highly recommend.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Again. You know, when you get past a certain

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Speaker 1: threshold of financial success, there is often corruption, and we

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Speaker 1: see this throughout history. It's not just it's deeper than

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Speaker 1: the canned tuna. Fellow conspiracy realists, you can see cyclical

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Speaker 1: trends like this in pretty much any other sort of seafood.

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Speaker 1: There's a huge market in counterfeit calamari. You know it's

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Speaker 1: pig buttholes. Just to be very clear with everyone, there's

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Speaker 1: also a shark flesh sold as different. Look, it's a

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Speaker 1: whole thing. What we're saying is tonight, Paul, Matt and

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Speaker 1: I are zooming in on canned seafood in particular because

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Speaker 1: for most of us it seems like a pretty humble,

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Speaker 1: approachable thing. It's cheap, it's way more affordable than the

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Speaker 1: fresh stuff, especially if you don't live off the coast.

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Speaker 1: It's shelf stable. Like you said, Matt, it doesn't go

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Speaker 1: bad immediately. And you pointed out, you know what was it?

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Speaker 1: There was old Ben Franklin quote about visitors to your

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Speaker 1: house said visitors are like fish. After about three days,

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Speaker 1: they stick. I'm paraphrasing, but it is. It is a

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Speaker 1: real quote. Uh. And also, you know, if you are

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Speaker 1: looking to enter katosis, if you are looking to live

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Speaker 1: a more healthy lifestyle, this stuff, this canned fish is

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Speaker 1: pretty great so long as you can avoid the mercury poisoning.

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Speaker 1: But Matt, that's the question, all this fish, all these

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Speaker 1: formerly affordable cans of seafood, where do they come.

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Speaker 2: From canned fish. But where does it come from?

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Speaker 1: Is that is that our uh is that our old

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Speaker 1: DNA from how stuff works?

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Speaker 2: I think that's stuff of genius maybe or infamous inventors,

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Speaker 2: one of those.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, oh god, yeah, no, you're absolutely right, you nailed it.

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Speaker 1: Stuff of genius. Yeah, oh boy. All right, So it

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Speaker 1: comes from all around the world. Obviously, the majority of

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Speaker 1: the world is oceanic, right, Like, if you're listening to

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Speaker 1: this podcast, you probably live on land, which puts you

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Speaker 1: in the minority of life forms on the planet. And

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Speaker 1: if we wanted to name the biggest country in the

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Speaker 1: human world for seafood, we would be looking at the

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Speaker 1: country of Thailand.

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Speaker 2: Oh yes, it alone shifts out between six and a

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Speaker 2: half to seven point three billion dollars worth of seafood

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Speaker 2: every year every year. So if we you know, think

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Speaker 2: about what we were just talking about, sales in the

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Speaker 2: US about nine point five billion dollars worth of seafood.

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Speaker 2: This is they're shipping out but most of that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, just like the cantuna companies. Right, there are

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Speaker 1: tons of non sinister reasons that Thailand would be a

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Speaker 1: big player in the seafood industry. First, of course, location, right,

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Speaker 1: Thailand is a peninsular country. It's absolutely riddled with coastlines

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Speaker 1: and rivers. It's kind of cool stuff.

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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Well, in the Gulf of Thailand, that's there

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Speaker 2: that you've got Vietnam, Cambodia, and then Thailand that wraps

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Speaker 2: around most of it. That's where just a vast amount

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Speaker 2: of the seafood you probably eat comes from.

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Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, it's true. It's true, and it should bother

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Speaker 3: you because there's another reason for all this maritime success.

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Speaker 1: It's not just location. It's profit margin. Thaie seafood exports

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Speaker 1: require less investment because of a dirty, terrifying secret. There

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Speaker 1: is stuff they don't want you to know. A lot

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Speaker 1: of the people in the tie fishing industry are slaves.

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Speaker 2: It's unfortunately true, and we will tell you all about

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Speaker 2: it when we get back from this quick break.

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Speaker 1: Here's where it gets crazy. It's true. It's true. Slavery

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Speaker 1: is powering seafood. Multiple investigations over years, more than a

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Speaker 1: decade now, have found that Thailand's fishing industry is, as

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Speaker 1: the economists put it in twenty fifteen, quote, rife with

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Speaker 1: trafficking and abuse.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's been looked at multiple times over the

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Speaker 2: years as a major problem. We're going to talk about

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Speaker 2: all of the fixes, or mate, let's put them in

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Speaker 2: quotes of the fixes. Quote that, yeah, that groups and

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Speaker 2: NGOs internal Thai officials have attempted to do like some fixes,

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Speaker 2: but there's just not working. Guys. Back in twenty fourteen,

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Speaker 2: there was an investigation by The Guardian and they established

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Speaker 2: that quote large numbers of men bought and sold like

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Speaker 2: animals and held against their will on fishing boats off

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Speaker 2: Thailand are integral to the production of prawns commonly called

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Speaker 2: shrimp in the US, sold in leading supermarkets around the world,

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Speaker 2: including the top four global retailers Walmart, carrafour, Costco, and Tesco.

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Speaker 2: You will probably if you live in the United States.

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Speaker 2: I'm certain you're aware of Costco and Walmart. Tesco is

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Speaker 2: pretty big in the UK, I believe in maybe other

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Speaker 2: areas in Europe. I am unaware of carfour.

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Speaker 1: It's also UK based. Okay, okay, yeah, this investigation, I'm

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Speaker 1: so glad you bring this up. This investigation found that

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Speaker 1: a place called CP Foods Pardner type pronunciation here Charon

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Speaker 1: pulp fand Charon polpe hand it buys what's called fish meal.

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Speaker 1: Think of it like livestock feed. It buys fish meal

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Speaker 1: from suppliers that own these boats, or operate these boats,

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Speaker 1: or buy stuff from these boats that are entirely manned

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Speaker 1: by enslaved people.

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Speaker 2: It's pretty nuts, and we'll get into the mechanics of it.

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Speaker 2: We've learned a lot by Ben. You shared several articles

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Speaker 2: in the rabbit Hole. Is really deep on this one,

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Speaker 2: just talking about how you how easy it is to

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Speaker 2: put someone in an enslavement position by putting them on

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Speaker 2: a boat. If you could keep that boat away from

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Speaker 2: any dock right for an elongated period of time, if

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Speaker 2: you can find ways to do that, you literally have

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Speaker 2: someone trapped on a ship, on a boat. It's nuts. So,

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Speaker 2: but let's talk about fish meal because this is something

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Speaker 2: I didn't really understand. I always think of the word

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Speaker 2: chum when it comes to attracting sharks or something like that.

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Speaker 2: I think of fish meal as chum for fish. Does

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Speaker 2: that make sense? Is that even the right way to

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Speaker 2: think about it?

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Speaker 1: It makes sense chum is used to entice sharks the

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Speaker 1: same way that chicken feed or corn meal is used

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Speaker 1: to feed livestock. Fish Meal is any substance that can

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Speaker 1: be consumed by maritime organisms that will be sold to

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Speaker 1: consumers like salmon farms or prawden farms, etc. And you know, Matt,

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Speaker 1: it makes me think. Also, I'm really glad you brought

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Speaker 1: up chum because because I looked into the idea of chum.

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Speaker 1: And the idea of chum is throwing throwing the non

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Speaker 1: profitable parts of a fish into the water such that

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Speaker 1: you can catch a larger fish. It's kind of a

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Speaker 1: sting operation, honestly. And you know, US companies have gotten

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Speaker 1: in some hot water for feeding, for tricking chickens into

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Speaker 1: becoming cannibals in the past. That's true. Check out our

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Speaker 1: episodes on the livestock industry. The idea here reminds me

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Speaker 1: of the US corn industry. Corn is heavily subsidized in

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Speaker 1: the US. A huge swath of the annual corn production

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Speaker 1: is never meant to reach you at a grocery store.

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Speaker 1: It's meant to feed other supply chains. Also, we should

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Speaker 1: do a corn episode.

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Speaker 2: No, for sure, we should. But this is highly important,

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Speaker 2: right because if you are paying little to nothing to

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Speaker 2: acquire the feed that you need, right or the stee

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Speaker 2: one thing, if you don't have to pay anything for that,

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Speaker 2: it it's gonna significantly increase the profit you make at

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Speaker 2: the end of the process. Right, So if companies that

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Speaker 2: are able to I guess buy from CP Foods who

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Speaker 2: are using this this slave labor. Gosh, I mean, it's

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Speaker 2: really about cutting costs from the top down, right, or

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Speaker 2: ignoring practices. It's what it feels like to me. Well,

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Speaker 2: we're gonna get into it.

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Speaker 1: But Kimberley process.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, let's talk about how we even found out, Like,

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Speaker 2: how did anybody find out that there's slave labor going on?

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Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, dude, because some people escaped, primarily people who

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Speaker 1: were kidnapped and enslaved, managed to get off these boats,

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Speaker 1: these nightmarish trowlers around the around this area the Southeast Pacific.

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Speaker 1: They told the Guardian and they told you, and investigators,

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Speaker 1: they told NGOs that they were in absolutely hellish conditions.

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Speaker 1: You would work for twenty hours without a break, and

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Speaker 1: even if you did that, they would still beat the

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Speaker 1: ever loving Christ out of you, just to prove a point.

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Speaker 1: There was common torture. One of the things that would

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Speaker 1: happen often if a ship got a new batch of

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Speaker 1: enslaved people, they would kill one of the old slaves

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Speaker 1: in front of the new guys, just to set the precedent.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, and these people were at sea on the

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Speaker 1: ocean for years and years and years. The one thing

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Speaker 1: that they would be given freely, not food, methamphetamines, drugs.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and there are personal stories from people who escape

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Speaker 2: this stuff who talk of these fairly small ships that

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Speaker 2: you think would hold maybe ten twelve human beings, you know,

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Speaker 2: in the whole area, I guess below deck, But there

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Speaker 2: were thirty people sometimes on board these just like stuffed

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Speaker 2: in there like sardines as they're going around trying to fish. No,

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry, is that wrong? Yeah, that's what That's what

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Speaker 2: it sounded like to me.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you're absolutely right, dude. I mean, and these are

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Speaker 1: these are often, by and large, not people from Thailand.

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Speaker 1: These are often migrant workers. So imagine you live in

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Speaker 1: Myanmar or Burma some call it. Imagine you live in Cambodia.

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Speaker 1: The economy is broken, right, and you have a family.

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Speaker 1: You have to do your best to secure some sort

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Speaker 1: of future for your kids. So you get a job

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Speaker 1: offer from abroad and they say, hey, you can come

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Speaker 1: here to Thailand. There's a more prosperous economy. Work in

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Speaker 1: this factory. We make a bunch of electronics stuff, right,

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Speaker 1: or work in this construction industry. Right. We're always building buildings,

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Speaker 1: and so this could be life changing. The problem is

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Speaker 1: the way it starts, because we are, to your point,

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Speaker 1: talking about orders of operations. The way it starts is

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Speaker 1: a broker's representative tells these people in these adjacent countries

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Speaker 1: that there is a solid job, a good opportunity. You

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Speaker 1: can send the money back, your kids can go to school,

431
00:30:56,600 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And when you get over the border,

432
00:31:02,520 --> 00:31:07,760
Speaker 1: you find out that these brokers, these kingpins of this industry,

433
00:31:08,640 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 1: are not hooking you up with construction. They're not hooking

434
00:31:11,800 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 1: you up with a good manufacturing job. They are selling

435
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:21,040
Speaker 1: you to these captains of these boats. Again, small ships,

436
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 1: and these boats and their captains, I will posit they

437
00:31:26,320 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 1: are small operators in a much larger, a much larger

438
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:38,680
Speaker 1: organized crime syndicate. You know, Matt, we talked about this

439
00:31:38,720 --> 00:31:44,520
Speaker 1: a little bit. These folks are often quote unquote sold

440
00:31:45,720 --> 00:31:49,200
Speaker 1: for less than the price of your favorite gaming console.

441
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:53,080
Speaker 1: I think right now, the current and this is happening

442
00:31:53,160 --> 00:31:58,600
Speaker 1: now as we record, the current good price is like

443
00:31:59,080 --> 00:32:02,720
Speaker 1: the equivalent of three hundred and twenty US dollars for

444
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:03,720
Speaker 1: a person's life.

445
00:32:04,240 --> 00:32:10,040
Speaker 2: Jeez. Yeah, that's that's intense. There are also stories just

446
00:32:10,080 --> 00:32:14,360
Speaker 2: when we're talking about acquiring people for these ships. There's

447
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 2: the process you just described, Ben, there were some others

448
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:21,280
Speaker 2: that were it was it seemed I mean, it's all predatory, right,

449
00:32:21,320 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 2: this is all super predatory. There's some that seemed less predatory,

450
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:29,400
Speaker 2: at least in the beginning, where it's a friend of

451
00:32:29,440 --> 00:32:31,960
Speaker 2: a friend or somebody says, hey, there's a job opportunity

452
00:32:32,000 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 2: on one of these one of these boats. I did

453
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:36,360
Speaker 2: it for a year, you should do it, or you know,

454
00:32:36,400 --> 00:32:38,680
Speaker 2: I did it for a time, you should try. And

455
00:32:39,720 --> 00:32:42,960
Speaker 2: it was never stated specifically this way, but I have

456
00:32:43,040 --> 00:32:47,080
Speaker 2: a hunch that it would work this way where you

457
00:32:47,240 --> 00:32:51,680
Speaker 2: may be released from your time on that boat if

458
00:32:51,720 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 2: you can provide, you know, several other people to replace you,

459
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:59,080
Speaker 2: or I'm imagining it could function that way. But that

460
00:32:59,200 --> 00:33:01,200
Speaker 2: seems kind hard on the part of the people who

461
00:33:01,200 --> 00:33:06,000
Speaker 2: were actually enslaving other humans. But it was weird because

462
00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:07,880
Speaker 2: some of the stories were like, well, I just heard

463
00:33:07,920 --> 00:33:09,560
Speaker 2: it was a friend of somebody I trusted, and he

464
00:33:09,560 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 2: said I should go on this boat, so I did,

465
00:33:11,720 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 2: and then I ended up at sea for years.

466
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 1: Yeah, the idea of that evil M to M kind

467
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 1: of approach. It is true, and often these folks, once

468
00:33:25,600 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 1: captured and enslaved, are sold from one boat to the next.

469
00:33:33,160 --> 00:33:38,640
Speaker 1: There are too many stories about this. We're glad that

470
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:44,960
Speaker 1: these people escaped, but we are also as hopefully you are,

471
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:53,560
Speaker 1: very cognizant of the profundity of this problem. There's one

472
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:56,920
Speaker 1: story a guy who used to be a monk in Cambodia,

473
00:33:57,480 --> 00:34:01,760
Speaker 1: whose name we're not gonna lease on air for his safety.

474
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 1: He said the following to the Guardian, he said, quote,

475
00:34:05,600 --> 00:34:08,799
Speaker 1: they kept me chained up, They didn't care about me

476
00:34:09,160 --> 00:34:13,560
Speaker 1: or give me any food. They sold us like animals,

477
00:34:13,800 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 1: but we are not animals. We are human beings. And

478
00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:25,120
Speaker 1: then the stories keep pouring in, you know, like one guy,

479
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:31,040
Speaker 1: and they are overwhelmingly dudes. Often and I know this

480
00:34:31,120 --> 00:34:34,120
Speaker 1: is going to be very disturbing to a lot of us.

481
00:34:34,880 --> 00:34:40,360
Speaker 1: Often they are children. One victim of this trafficking you

482
00:34:40,480 --> 00:34:44,680
Speaker 1: spent years at sea, said he had seen at least

483
00:34:44,920 --> 00:34:50,879
Speaker 1: twenty other enslaved people killed in front of him and

484
00:34:52,200 --> 00:34:59,040
Speaker 1: in horrific ways, by which we mean torturous. One guy

485
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:06,120
Speaker 1: was tied to the bows of four different shipping vessels

486
00:35:06,600 --> 00:35:12,560
Speaker 1: or fish trawlers excuse me, and the boats pulled away.

487
00:35:13,239 --> 00:35:18,800
Speaker 1: It's like being quartered by horses. Unholy, unclean stuff.

488
00:35:18,800 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 2: Man, that's messed up. It's a lot of trouble to

489
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:25,839
Speaker 2: go to, as you were saying, Ben, like making an

490
00:35:25,880 --> 00:35:29,040
Speaker 2: example to keep everybody in line, fear for fear for

491
00:35:29,080 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 2: your life because we will go to these lengths. That's uh.

492
00:35:34,719 --> 00:35:37,400
Speaker 1: It makes me think the overseers are also on drugs,

493
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:42,640
Speaker 1: to be quite honest with you, Like that is that

494
00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:45,520
Speaker 1: is that is psychological warfare?

495
00:35:46,000 --> 00:35:47,160
Speaker 2: Mm hm. You know.

496
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:55,040
Speaker 1: And the the horror again is linked specifically to the

497
00:35:55,200 --> 00:36:01,920
Speaker 1: largest farmer of shrimp and prads in the world, CP

498
00:36:02,239 --> 00:36:07,840
Speaker 1: Foods that you alluded earlier to the order of operations.

499
00:36:08,400 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: So how does this stuff, how does this mass enslavement

500
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:17,960
Speaker 1: reach grocery store shelves?

501
00:36:18,320 --> 00:36:21,560
Speaker 2: Well, here we go in the most messed up how

502
00:36:21,600 --> 00:36:23,120
Speaker 2: did this get made? Episode?

503
00:36:23,400 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 3: Ever?

504
00:36:27,239 --> 00:36:31,680
Speaker 2: Ceape Foods that we mentioned before, it's a Thailand operation.

505
00:36:32,360 --> 00:36:36,520
Speaker 2: They will often have these slave ships that are in

506
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:39,880
Speaker 2: international waters. They're off the coast, they're right outside of Thailand,

507
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 2: but they're in international waters. They are on a hunt

508
00:36:43,760 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 2: for fish that aren't going to ever get canned by

509
00:36:47,480 --> 00:36:50,919
Speaker 2: any canning industry, doesn't matter. You're not going to can

510
00:36:51,000 --> 00:36:54,200
Speaker 2: these fish. You might find them at a farmer's market.

511
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:55,880
Speaker 2: Every once in a while, you can actually go to

512
00:36:55,920 --> 00:36:57,799
Speaker 2: a couple of places near where I am, Ben and

513
00:36:57,840 --> 00:37:02,360
Speaker 2: find some of the trash fish or fish considered trash,

514
00:37:02,760 --> 00:37:08,120
Speaker 2: and they're often sold for exactly like the actual species

515
00:37:08,200 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 2: names of these fish that most people would not eat,

516
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 2: but they are consumed. But they catch this trash fish,

517
00:37:15,320 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 2: they send it off to a place to get I

518
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:21,840
Speaker 2: guess just turned into the meal with those other things

519
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:24,000
Speaker 2: that you're talking about, Ben, like just all the stuff

520
00:37:24,040 --> 00:37:27,280
Speaker 2: that goes into the grinding process that creates the fish

521
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:31,200
Speaker 2: meal that then goes to feeding the prawns.

522
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:37,239
Speaker 1: And from there Cepe buys that fish meal. Think of

523
00:37:37,320 --> 00:37:41,640
Speaker 1: like hot dogs. Folks think of hot dog ingredients and shady,

524
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:45,359
Speaker 1: sketchy hot dogs. You don't want to know what part

525
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:46,759
Speaker 1: of the pigs going.

526
00:37:46,560 --> 00:37:50,760
Speaker 2: There, sketchy hot dogs. That is such just a good

527
00:37:50,800 --> 00:37:54,319
Speaker 2: phrase for something. I'm gonna figure it out.

528
00:37:55,640 --> 00:38:00,800
Speaker 1: And so this company, Cepe, they will buy fish meal,

529
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:03,600
Speaker 1: and we want to pick on them too much. We'll

530
00:38:03,640 --> 00:38:07,200
Speaker 1: give them their We'll give them their stand at the

531
00:38:07,239 --> 00:38:10,560
Speaker 1: soapbox in a bit, but they buy this fish meal

532
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:14,799
Speaker 1: from this shady supply chain and then they feed it

533
00:38:15,480 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 1: to these prawns, the shrimp that they have in their farms,

534
00:38:21,160 --> 00:38:29,200
Speaker 1: and from there the well, it sounds convoluted to say

535
00:38:29,239 --> 00:38:34,520
Speaker 1: it this way, but the shrimp eat the fish meal

536
00:38:35,480 --> 00:38:40,799
Speaker 1: that is gathered by slaves, and after you have that

537
00:38:40,920 --> 00:38:45,280
Speaker 1: kind of double blind and that proxy of order of operations,

538
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 1: that those shrimp that seafood ends up in all sorts

539
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:56,440
Speaker 1: of unexpected places. We mentioned Walmart, we name Czech Costco,

540
00:38:57,080 --> 00:39:02,200
Speaker 1: UK chains, Tesco care for but also like Aldise Morrison's,

541
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:05,279
Speaker 1: a bunch of companies in Iceland. What do they all

542
00:39:05,280 --> 00:39:10,400
Speaker 1: have in common? Do they sell frozen and pre cooked

543
00:39:10,400 --> 00:39:14,560
Speaker 1: shrimp in a convenient little bag, maybe even like a

544
00:39:14,560 --> 00:39:20,120
Speaker 1: little microwave meal. Oh I want a trimp stair fry,

545
00:39:20,800 --> 00:39:23,440
Speaker 1: but I only have three minutes and thirty seconds.

546
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:26,640
Speaker 2: So are we saying there are other big name food

547
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:30,239
Speaker 2: companies that buy this shrimp that then go into their

548
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:34,799
Speaker 2: like frozen prawns and that kind of stuff or is

549
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:38,359
Speaker 2: it only stuff that is put out there by CP Foods.

550
00:39:40,400 --> 00:39:46,280
Speaker 1: It's the problem is with this, with this conspiracy, it's

551
00:39:46,760 --> 00:39:53,920
Speaker 1: somewhat difficult to trace every folly fraud because there are

552
00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:59,360
Speaker 1: so many opportunities to obscate. There are so many opportunities

553
00:39:59,800 --> 00:40:06,000
Speaker 1: to to play the Matroshka doll shell company thing. There

554
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 1: are just so many opportunities to pass the buck. Here

555
00:40:10,360 --> 00:40:17,880
Speaker 1: and the weirdest thing, CP Foods readily admits that slave

556
00:40:18,120 --> 00:40:22,759
Speaker 1: labor is part of their supply chain. They're not doing

557
00:40:22,800 --> 00:40:27,520
Speaker 1: a they're not doing a matrix dodge. They're doing they're

558
00:40:27,520 --> 00:40:29,840
Speaker 1: doing like a a shrug.

559
00:40:33,360 --> 00:40:35,320
Speaker 2: I do I don't. I don't understand.

560
00:40:36,719 --> 00:40:42,440
Speaker 1: I don't get it either. In again, it's a global corporation.

561
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:49,600
Speaker 1: The United Kingdom's managing director of CP Foods back in

562
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 1: like twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen, guy named Bob Miller, Investigators

563
00:40:55,600 --> 00:40:59,520
Speaker 1: contacted him and he said the following.

564
00:40:59,120 --> 00:41:02,799
Speaker 2: Thing here to defend what is going on. We know

565
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:06,480
Speaker 2: there's issues with regard to the raw material that comes

566
00:41:06,520 --> 00:41:09,920
Speaker 2: into port, but to what extent that is, we just

567
00:41:10,000 --> 00:41:12,800
Speaker 2: don't have the visibility for real.

568
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 1: Bro, I mean, like for real, We're not We're not,

569
00:41:18,760 --> 00:41:23,759
Speaker 1: of course saying that these people, these employees of this

570
00:41:23,960 --> 00:41:30,800
Speaker 1: vast corporation are readily actively you know, rubbing their hands

571
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:36,160
Speaker 1: Monty Burn's style, trying to enslave people. But that sounds

572
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:40,239
Speaker 1: that sounds kind of cold, you know.

573
00:41:40,760 --> 00:41:42,719
Speaker 2: We have. It makes me wonder if it's just with

574
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:46,840
Speaker 2: the prawn fishing or if it actually extends out further

575
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:51,280
Speaker 2: in just in the waters they're in the Gulf of Thailand,

576
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:57,720
Speaker 2: Like how common is it for because we're talking about

577
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:02,480
Speaker 2: ultimately trash fish fishing that is being done by enslaved

578
00:42:02,560 --> 00:42:06,319
Speaker 2: human beings that ends up feeding prawns that goes, you know,

579
00:42:06,360 --> 00:42:10,440
Speaker 2: all over the place. I wonder how much that that

580
00:42:10,600 --> 00:42:14,880
Speaker 2: exists because there's fish meal that goes into salmon fisheries,

581
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:18,160
Speaker 2: tuna fisheries, all of the same kinds of things, and

582
00:42:18,200 --> 00:42:18,880
Speaker 2: I wonder.

583
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:21,600
Speaker 1: How goes how much food cat food?

584
00:42:22,440 --> 00:42:24,920
Speaker 2: M Well, yeah, no, you're right, I wonder how much

585
00:42:24,920 --> 00:42:27,359
Speaker 2: of it is much further widespread.

586
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:33,080
Speaker 1: It's pervasive, we could say. And we're we're honing in

587
00:42:33,160 --> 00:42:36,720
Speaker 1: on again the facts, the things that can be proven

588
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:39,959
Speaker 1: and have been proven. We're going to pause for a

589
00:42:40,000 --> 00:42:54,240
Speaker 1: word from our sponsors and then we will return with more. Okay,

590
00:42:54,280 --> 00:43:02,279
Speaker 1: we're back, So before these relatively thorough investigations again, like

591
00:43:02,960 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 1: Matt and I mentioned, they're honing in not on all seafood,

592
00:43:07,640 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 1: they're honing in specifically on the fish meal two farmed

593
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:18,960
Speaker 1: shrimp to your grocery store connection. It is true, it

594
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:24,640
Speaker 1: is happening. Even before this, the United Nations and a

595
00:43:24,680 --> 00:43:32,600
Speaker 1: bevy of NGOs non governmental organizations raised alarm over this insidious,

596
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:39,919
Speaker 1: normalized industrialized slavery in the Thai fishing industry. We've got

597
00:43:39,920 --> 00:43:45,480
Speaker 1: a quote from Aiden McQuaid, director of an NGO called

598
00:43:45,719 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 1: Anti Slavery International, and Aiden is pretty blunt, I would say,

599
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:55,480
Speaker 1: pretty explicit about the issue here.

600
00:43:55,920 --> 00:43:59,240
Speaker 2: Heiden says, if you buy prawns or shrimp from Thailand,

601
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:02,800
Speaker 2: you will be buying the produce of slave labor.

602
00:44:03,760 --> 00:44:08,680
Speaker 1: Oh no, boy, we got to read the labels on that.

603
00:44:09,640 --> 00:44:12,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, we just have to stay balanced here. And I

604
00:44:12,800 --> 00:44:15,400
Speaker 2: just have to say this, Ben, we have talked about

605
00:44:15,520 --> 00:44:19,040
Speaker 2: NGOs in the past. It is you can't throw shade

606
00:44:19,080 --> 00:44:22,319
Speaker 2: at every NGO that is doing, you know, work in

607
00:44:22,400 --> 00:44:25,800
Speaker 2: other countries and internationally. You just have to be aware

608
00:44:26,120 --> 00:44:30,319
Speaker 2: that some NGOs are built a little differently than other

609
00:44:30,719 --> 00:44:35,040
Speaker 2: NGOs and you never know what the it's tough to

610
00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:37,520
Speaker 2: know what the real motivations are in the players behind

611
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:41,120
Speaker 2: an NGO are right in this case pretty on the nose.

612
00:44:41,280 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 2: This is the Anti Slavery International NGO. You kind of

613
00:44:45,800 --> 00:44:50,880
Speaker 2: get what their aims are just putting that out there

614
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 2: as people who've listened to our previous episodes.

615
00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:59,440
Speaker 1: Absolutely, and I really appreciate that because it's true. NGOs

616
00:44:59,520 --> 00:45:00,800
Speaker 1: can function.

617
00:45:00,800 --> 00:45:04,800
Speaker 2: As governmental organizations.

618
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:10,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, one hundred percent. That's a problem, you know

619
00:45:10,560 --> 00:45:13,879
Speaker 1: what I mean. There there's a reason that a lot

620
00:45:13,920 --> 00:45:16,640
Speaker 1: of nations don't like the Peace Corps in their backyard,

621
00:45:17,400 --> 00:45:21,759
Speaker 1: you know, and that is that is something we do

622
00:45:21,920 --> 00:45:26,439
Speaker 1: need to keep front of mind. Whenever you hear a

623
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 1: think tank or whenever you hear a statement from some

624
00:45:30,640 --> 00:45:35,040
Speaker 1: high muckety muck in something that is not quite a

625
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 1: government agency, they may have some aims, you know, Black

626
00:45:40,719 --> 00:45:41,920
Speaker 1: Monday murders and so on.

627
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 2: Ben, I want to before we move in to the

628
00:45:45,480 --> 00:45:47,320
Speaker 2: next section, you just want to shout out one of

629
00:45:47,360 --> 00:45:53,919
Speaker 2: the sources you found. It's from the Lowy Lowie Lowy

630
00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:58,960
Speaker 2: Institute dot org. You can read this article. It's titled

631
00:45:59,000 --> 00:46:02,800
Speaker 2: Caught in the Net in Slavery on Southeast Asian Seas.

632
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 2: It's by JJ Rose. It's an excellent read. Just it's

633
00:46:08,080 --> 00:46:13,440
Speaker 2: written very much in a storytelling cadence and with language

634
00:46:13,480 --> 00:46:16,000
Speaker 2: there that really takes you here and lets you see

635
00:46:16,000 --> 00:46:18,840
Speaker 2: through the eyes of some of the individuals going through

636
00:46:20,120 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 2: this stuff. So just want to shout that out.

637
00:46:22,760 --> 00:46:31,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, agreed, And again it is I keep overusing the

638
00:46:31,040 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 1: word heartbreaking. This is a real thing. There are real

639
00:46:35,520 --> 00:46:41,320
Speaker 1: people who, through no fault of their own, are enslaved

640
00:46:41,560 --> 00:46:44,359
Speaker 1: now as we record. And so what do you do

641
00:46:44,719 --> 00:46:49,759
Speaker 1: in this case? If you, like us, are interested in

642
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:54,960
Speaker 1: the idea of not having people enslaved, then you would

643
00:46:55,000 --> 00:46:58,719
Speaker 1: go to an institution, right, you would go to the

644
00:46:59,600 --> 00:47:04,040
Speaker 1: force that is supposed to maintain rule of law in

645
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:07,759
Speaker 1: this country. So we'll go to the Thai government. When

646
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:14,440
Speaker 1: asked about this again, insidious, normalized economy of scale, enslavement

647
00:47:14,480 --> 00:47:18,480
Speaker 1: of people, all for the sake of seafood, the former

648
00:47:18,719 --> 00:47:24,400
Speaker 1: Thai ambassador to the Unyited States said, quote, Thailand is

649
00:47:24,719 --> 00:47:29,080
Speaker 1: committed to combating human trafficking. We know a lot more

650
00:47:29,200 --> 00:47:33,000
Speaker 1: needs to be done, but we have also made very

651
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:41,320
Speaker 1: significant progress to address the problem. And Thailand being already

652
00:47:42,360 --> 00:47:46,480
Speaker 1: a hub and a transit point for all sorts of

653
00:47:46,719 --> 00:47:52,840
Speaker 1: human trafficking non related to the maritime industry. They consider

654
00:47:52,920 --> 00:47:56,279
Speaker 1: this a national priority. But if you look at it,

655
00:47:56,800 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 1: if you look at the years of research. If you

656
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:03,919
Speaker 1: look at again, Matt, the stories of human beings who

657
00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:09,440
Speaker 1: survived this, it appears that the fishing industry in Thailand

658
00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:17,560
Speaker 1: is at least partially rut by organized crime and at

659
00:48:17,600 --> 00:48:22,400
Speaker 1: the minimum parts of the government. Officials in the government,

660
00:48:22,480 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 1: factions of the government are on the payroll. They're turning

661
00:48:26,239 --> 00:48:28,680
Speaker 1: a blind eye on purpose.

662
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:33,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, it does feel like that that. Let's talk about

663
00:48:33,840 --> 00:48:37,160
Speaker 2: some of the things they did. There's this organization that

664
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:41,239
Speaker 2: was created in response to, you know, the revelations that

665
00:48:41,280 --> 00:48:45,919
Speaker 2: there's you know, oh, something terrible is happening. The Sustainable

666
00:48:45,960 --> 00:48:50,680
Speaker 2: Seafood Task Force was created. This is like an insular

667
00:48:50,760 --> 00:48:53,960
Speaker 2: industry kind of group. It's made up of the people

668
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:58,240
Speaker 2: that buy you know, like supermarkets that buy this stuff,

669
00:48:59,320 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 2: like wholesale buyers that will buy a whole bunch and

670
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:05,839
Speaker 2: then resell to supermarkets and things like that. Anybody. It's

671
00:49:05,920 --> 00:49:08,399
Speaker 2: really just a bunch of different groups that source these

672
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:12,240
Speaker 2: prawns from Thailand. It was set up in twenty fifteen

673
00:49:13,360 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 2: and it's supposed to bring at least, according to the Guardian,

674
00:49:16,880 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 2: transparency and accountability to the supply chain. Fixed things right

675
00:49:21,200 --> 00:49:24,719
Speaker 2: all those years ago in twenty fifteen, we've got from

676
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:28,800
Speaker 2: that same Guardian article. A quote here from Steve Trent,

677
00:49:29,360 --> 00:49:33,000
Speaker 2: who is the chief executive of something called the Environmental

678
00:49:33,200 --> 00:49:40,680
Speaker 2: Justice Foundation the EJF. Okay, he's got a pretty solid

679
00:49:40,760 --> 00:49:45,799
Speaker 2: quote here, and when speaking about the Sustainable Seafood Task Force,

680
00:49:46,560 --> 00:49:47,960
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna I'm just gonna rally it off. You

681
00:49:48,000 --> 00:49:52,440
Speaker 2: already been. Oh so stoked, Steve says, Never in my

682
00:49:52,560 --> 00:49:56,360
Speaker 2: career have I seen a process more focused on talking

683
00:49:56,400 --> 00:49:59,880
Speaker 2: in hotel rooms in Bangkok rather than actually committing to

684
00:50:00,120 --> 00:50:02,320
Speaker 2: using their influence to create real change.

685
00:50:07,719 --> 00:50:13,480
Speaker 1: Evil. Oh boy, Oh no, Yeah, that's the thing, Matt,

686
00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:17,720
Speaker 1: that's the thing right like they're there.

687
00:50:17,360 --> 00:50:20,040
Speaker 2: By the way. In the Guardian article, then, quote the

688
00:50:20,040 --> 00:50:23,440
Speaker 2: Sustainable Seafood Task Force did not respond to a request

689
00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:23,840
Speaker 2: for coming.

690
00:50:25,040 --> 00:50:28,360
Speaker 1: Oh gosh, well call the hotel room, you know what

691
00:50:28,440 --> 00:50:32,160
Speaker 1: I mean. Quote you gotta call room service first, call

692
00:50:32,200 --> 00:50:37,640
Speaker 1: the front desk. Excuse me. So there there is an

693
00:50:37,719 --> 00:50:41,920
Speaker 1: existential threat to this industry right because we have to

694
00:50:41,920 --> 00:50:47,360
Speaker 1: ask ourselves the question which apparently people are asking themselves

695
00:50:47,360 --> 00:50:51,200
Speaker 1: in hotel rooms in Fuquet and Chiang Mai and Bangkok

696
00:50:51,280 --> 00:50:57,640
Speaker 1: right now. Can Thailand's fishing industry survive without the mass

697
00:50:57,800 --> 00:51:04,759
Speaker 1: enslavement of innocent people. Answer is no, The answer is

698
00:51:05,520 --> 00:51:07,880
Speaker 1: probably not, and we have to ask why it can

699
00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:12,080
Speaker 1: be done like those like those folks got classic Steve.

700
00:51:12,280 --> 00:51:16,120
Speaker 1: I love that quote. Uh, like the the attempts to

701
00:51:16,400 --> 00:51:22,560
Speaker 1: combat this folks, they they kind of seem like lip service.

702
00:51:22,920 --> 00:51:27,799
Speaker 1: You know. It reminds me, Matt, it reminds me of

703
00:51:27,920 --> 00:51:36,239
Speaker 1: the blood diamond Uh industry. Before before synthetic diamonds were

704
00:51:36,560 --> 00:51:42,239
Speaker 1: technologically feasible, and back when the Beers still had its

705
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:49,480
Speaker 1: colonial stranglehold on on resources of the African continent. Uh,

706
00:51:49,560 --> 00:51:54,200
Speaker 1: they there was this thing created called the Kimberly process.

707
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:59,360
Speaker 1: And the Kimberly process was this idea that one could,

708
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:07,560
Speaker 1: through various registration and certification barriers, ensure that diamonds were

709
00:52:07,680 --> 00:52:13,720
Speaker 1: mined and cut and refined and sold in an equitable way.

710
00:52:14,200 --> 00:52:18,160
Speaker 1: It was a total grift. It did not benefit the

711
00:52:18,239 --> 00:52:24,120
Speaker 1: people who live in diamond rich areas well.

712
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:27,640
Speaker 2: I mean, it was like a tracking and self reporting system. Right.

713
00:52:28,600 --> 00:52:33,400
Speaker 2: Anytime there's an insular industry based self reporting thing, it

714
00:52:34,000 --> 00:52:36,680
Speaker 2: just history has shown us it doesn't go so great.

715
00:52:37,080 --> 00:52:40,000
Speaker 2: It just doesn't go so great because there are there

716
00:52:40,040 --> 00:52:45,080
Speaker 2: are reasons to not do it. Above board, and it's

717
00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:47,680
Speaker 2: mostly profit, which is you know, the basis of the

718
00:52:48,160 --> 00:52:51,319
Speaker 2: company capitalism.

719
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:55,719
Speaker 1: We're going to have the Foxes self regulate, you know,

720
00:52:55,840 --> 00:53:00,760
Speaker 1: we're gonna have the Foxes report on their hen House maneuvers. Okay,

721
00:53:01,080 --> 00:53:05,480
Speaker 1: we're gonna call it. We're gonna call it something cute.

722
00:53:05,480 --> 00:53:10,000
Speaker 1: See we're calling the Katsune process, right, nice.

723
00:53:10,320 --> 00:53:12,400
Speaker 2: Boy, But it really been. It really reminds me of

724
00:53:12,560 --> 00:53:14,880
Speaker 2: chocolate when we talked about that in the past, and

725
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:19,040
Speaker 2: the cocoa farms and all that. Where there is child

726
00:53:19,560 --> 00:53:23,920
Speaker 2: slave labor happening still well yeah, still there is, But

727
00:53:24,000 --> 00:53:26,640
Speaker 2: there were processes that. Oh who's that big company. It's

728
00:53:26,680 --> 00:53:28,320
Speaker 2: not an evil empire, it's just a company.

729
00:53:28,320 --> 00:53:34,480
Speaker 1: What was it, Well, it's it's it's near to it's near.

730
00:53:35,640 --> 00:53:36,640
Speaker 1: Oh it's Nestley.

731
00:53:37,120 --> 00:53:37,680
Speaker 2: Oh that's it.

732
00:53:40,600 --> 00:53:46,000
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes, famous for the manufacture of the Nesley crunch bar.

733
00:53:46,560 --> 00:53:52,440
Speaker 1: Also the famous for the idea of privatizing water. Also

734
00:53:52,680 --> 00:53:58,880
Speaker 1: famous for child labor. In the world of chocolate, Nesley,

735
00:54:00,560 --> 00:54:06,239
Speaker 1: our good old pals, the the the Henry Kissingers of

736
00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:14,360
Speaker 1: chocolate have decided to institute a kind of Kimberly process

737
00:54:14,880 --> 00:54:20,520
Speaker 1: for weirdly enough fish. Because he didn't know Nesley was

738
00:54:20,560 --> 00:54:32,800
Speaker 1: into fish. Huh No. Yeah. Their idea was that, again

739
00:54:33,080 --> 00:54:39,880
Speaker 1: that one could institute certain barriers of registration of compliance

740
00:54:40,400 --> 00:54:44,960
Speaker 1: such that you could say, we got this stuff from

741
00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:49,319
Speaker 1: a supply chain that does not involve mass enslavement.

742
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:53,080
Speaker 2: But again, it's so weird because I don't know that

743
00:54:53,200 --> 00:54:55,560
Speaker 2: I could sit down and tell you here's my solution

744
00:54:56,000 --> 00:55:01,160
Speaker 2: to making sure all the boats operating to catchfish in

745
00:55:01,239 --> 00:55:05,680
Speaker 2: the Gulf of Thailand don't have slave labor on them

746
00:55:05,880 --> 00:55:08,239
Speaker 2: in any way in the in my supply chain that

747
00:55:08,280 --> 00:55:10,320
Speaker 2: I control. You know, I don't know.

748
00:55:10,200 --> 00:55:11,120
Speaker 1: How I could do that.

749
00:55:11,600 --> 00:55:15,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, seriously, Like how how would you prove it unless

750
00:55:15,680 --> 00:55:19,400
Speaker 2: you had some kind of security firm that is literally

751
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:24,600
Speaker 2: checking up on every boat that is working for you.

752
00:55:25,000 --> 00:55:29,959
Speaker 1: Of ten to thirty people in the Pacific Ocean, right

753
00:55:30,800 --> 00:55:36,560
Speaker 1: checking checking the transparency of a factory that gets daily

754
00:55:37,040 --> 00:55:42,440
Speaker 1: shipments of trash fish with no names attached, Right, how

755
00:55:42,880 --> 00:55:45,359
Speaker 1: would you do that? You know? I love that you're

756
00:55:45,360 --> 00:55:49,880
Speaker 1: bringing us up. Man, We're not we're not necessarily condemning

757
00:55:50,480 --> 00:55:52,160
Speaker 1: the government of thailants.

758
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:54,719
Speaker 2: And we're not even condemning nesslie. Really, it's like it's

759
00:55:54,760 --> 00:55:58,680
Speaker 2: like trying to come up with solutions but it doesn't work,

760
00:55:58,760 --> 00:56:02,600
Speaker 2: and it also keeps them in business, you.

761
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:08,359
Speaker 1: Know, right, yeah, you know, it's like a if, uh,

762
00:56:08,880 --> 00:56:16,360
Speaker 1: if a car manufacturer started an NGO or a an

763
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:23,359
Speaker 1: initiative of some sort to investigate whether tires are necessary. Right,

764
00:56:23,360 --> 00:56:26,799
Speaker 1: they're gonna they're gonna have a horse in the race. Right,

765
00:56:26,840 --> 00:56:29,400
Speaker 1: They're gonna have uh, they're gonna have a little bit

766
00:56:29,440 --> 00:56:33,400
Speaker 1: of confirmation bias. We want to shout out a Netflix

767
00:56:33,440 --> 00:56:38,399
Speaker 1: documentary called c Spiracy hashtag No pun Left Behind, which

768
00:56:38,480 --> 00:56:46,640
Speaker 1: examines this along with boatload of other conspiracies that that

769
00:56:46,680 --> 00:56:49,920
Speaker 1: we have explored in the past, and that when you

770
00:56:49,960 --> 00:56:54,279
Speaker 1: get to well we get to the idea condemnation, you're right,

771
00:56:54,719 --> 00:56:58,960
Speaker 1: we're not. We're not crapping on people who are doing

772
00:56:59,040 --> 00:57:03,120
Speaker 1: their best, you know. And there's a ton of folks

773
00:57:03,719 --> 00:57:07,799
Speaker 1: out there in Thailand in the Gulf right now who

774
00:57:07,920 --> 00:57:11,880
Speaker 1: are making an honest living, right, and they're not enslaved,

775
00:57:12,239 --> 00:57:15,960
Speaker 1: and they're not enslaving people. But what we are doing,

776
00:57:16,280 --> 00:57:20,080
Speaker 1: what we do condemn is the idea of enslavement in

777
00:57:20,280 --> 00:57:24,800
Speaker 1: any shape, form or fashion. And the results are painfully clear,

778
00:57:25,480 --> 00:57:28,800
Speaker 1: even if it is not immediately apparent to all of

779
00:57:28,880 --> 00:57:35,200
Speaker 1: us in the grocery store. The world's largest seafood exportation

780
00:57:35,600 --> 00:57:41,400
Speaker 1: industry inherently relies on slavery, and no one's going to

781
00:57:41,440 --> 00:57:42,400
Speaker 1: do anything about it.

782
00:57:43,000 --> 00:57:47,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, some folks will make podcasts about it. I guess so.

783
00:57:47,640 --> 00:57:52,040
Speaker 1: From our little corner of the global woods and our

784
00:57:52,200 --> 00:57:56,480
Speaker 1: little podcast here, gathered around the campfire in the dark,

785
00:57:57,400 --> 00:58:02,080
Speaker 1: we want to ask you, fellow conspiracy realist, what are

786
00:58:02,120 --> 00:58:07,760
Speaker 1: these powerful entities actually doing, aside from lip service to

787
00:58:07,880 --> 00:58:12,480
Speaker 1: combat this clear problem. Let's keep in mind that Thailand

788
00:58:12,960 --> 00:58:17,000
Speaker 1: is a monarchy and does not play around with the

789
00:58:17,040 --> 00:58:22,760
Speaker 1: power of the king. The current monarch could likely obliterate

790
00:58:22,800 --> 00:58:28,920
Speaker 1: this practice with just one statement, and could save not

791
00:58:29,080 --> 00:58:33,880
Speaker 1: thousands of people's lives, but hundreds of thousands of people's lives.

792
00:58:34,200 --> 00:58:40,680
Speaker 1: As we record this evening, there is no reliable estimate

793
00:58:41,320 --> 00:58:45,760
Speaker 1: on the number of people enslaved in this fishing practice.

794
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:50,760
Speaker 2: Well, what do you think? Why don't you let us know?

795
00:58:50,840 --> 00:58:53,400
Speaker 2: You can find us all over the place. We are

796
00:58:53,480 --> 00:58:58,640
Speaker 2: conspiracy stuff on YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. We are conspiracy

797
00:58:58,680 --> 00:59:02,920
Speaker 2: stuff show on Instagram and TikTok. No threads yet, at

798
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:05,000
Speaker 2: least that I'm aware of. Maybe that's a new thing

799
00:59:05,200 --> 00:59:09,120
Speaker 2: coming at some point. I probably won't. I won't even

800
00:59:09,160 --> 00:59:12,200
Speaker 2: be aware. Really, But if you don't want to use

801
00:59:12,240 --> 00:59:15,280
Speaker 2: social media to contact us, you can give us a call.

802
00:59:16,040 --> 00:59:20,080
Speaker 1: That's true on a telephonic device. The power is yours.

803
00:59:20,240 --> 00:59:26,200
Speaker 1: The number is one eight three three STDWYTK. You'll hear

804
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:29,240
Speaker 1: a voice, and then you'll hear a beep like soap beep,

805
00:59:29,440 --> 00:59:32,360
Speaker 1: and then you got three minutes. Run wild, Let those

806
00:59:32,400 --> 00:59:35,400
Speaker 1: ponies run. All we ask is that you tell us

807
00:59:35,440 --> 00:59:39,160
Speaker 1: your story, tell us your nickname or street name or

808
00:59:39,240 --> 00:59:42,520
Speaker 1: moniker you always wanted, and let us know whether we

809
00:59:42,640 --> 00:59:46,440
Speaker 1: can use your name and or message on the air.

810
00:59:47,320 --> 00:59:52,120
Speaker 1: Take care, folks, sometimes the abyss calls back. Most importantly,

811
00:59:52,160 --> 00:59:56,040
Speaker 1: if you need more than three minutes, we want to

812
00:59:56,240 --> 00:59:59,680
Speaker 1: hear from you. We want to see those links, we

813
00:59:59,720 --> 01:00:03,360
Speaker 1: want see those photos. Take us to the edge of

814
01:00:03,400 --> 01:00:06,080
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole. We will do the rest. All you

815
01:00:06,120 --> 01:00:08,480
Speaker 1: have to do is drop us a line at our

816
01:00:08,560 --> 01:00:12,480
Speaker 1: good old fashioned email address. We read every letter we

817
01:00:12,680 --> 01:00:14,120
Speaker 1: get where we.

818
01:00:14,040 --> 01:00:37,160
Speaker 2: Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they don't want

819
01:00:37,200 --> 01:00:40,240
Speaker 2: you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more

820
01:00:40,280 --> 01:00:44,160
Speaker 2: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

821
01:00:44,160 --> 01:00:46,320
Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows,