#325: 33 crew members went DEEP SEA squid hunting, turned MAD, and started hunting EACH OTHER.

25:28and just something to note i went down the rabbit hole the squid fishing industry is terrifying and china does dominate in that industry there are a lot of questionable chinese companies that have been called out for very illegal very ethically immoral things that they have done to catch squid and the abuse that they put their workers through. I mean, some of the companies are just pure, pure evil. But the New Yorker, they put out a piece of the squid fishing industry and at the very end of their piece, they added food for thought because it's very easy to just point the finger at one very, very deplorable part of the food chain.

26:03But over 70 % of China's seafood catch is exported out of China and into places like the United States and the EU. So this is the kind of ship that they're on. They're not on a nine-month cruise. They're on a hell journey for two years. Do you remember Charlie, the one who smeared blood all over his face? He was the one that got Zach the job in the first place. Zach had never been on a boat like this before. Neither had Charlie. I mean, you would imagine that Xinfa Foods, the company that owns the ship, they would be recruiting real fishermen that know what they're doing to go out there for two years.

26:34But no, they were honestly just taking about anyone. Charlie was on the boat because he burned down a building. By accident, though, he worked for a bus company before this, sent. One night, Charlie got super, super drunk, started playing mahjong at a co-worker's place. He's drinking. One thing leads to another. He burns the building down. Look, we don't know exactly how he burned the building down. It seems to be an accident, but not really because he was drunk and being careless. The whole building caught on fire. And because he started the fire, he was in a ton of debt for the building repairs.

27:05And he thought, you know what? This is the best way to make money quickly. Because even if I make money right now, here's the problem. I keep spending all my money. I keep going and spending it on rent and going out to these restaurants and wanting to hang out with my friends. If I'm on this ship, how am I going to spend the money I'm working on? And I get free room, three meals a day. It's very little expenses. Zach describes Charlie as being the type of guy that was pretty excited about this whole experience. He wasn't moping around, dragging his feet, like complaining about, oh, I can't believe I have to do this because I'm in debt.

27:38I don't even mean to set the place on fire. He was actually a happy-go-lucky kind of guy. Zach and Charlie knew each other from working at a restaurant together. A few summers back, they both worked at a barbecue restaurant. And I feel like this was a bad omen in and of itself. It was a very rainy summer. They worked at a barbecue restaurant outside. They made next to nothing working together. It seemed like these two friends, they just did not have the best luck when they were put together. So Charlie calls Zach, tells him this is the job of a lifetime. The fishing company is going to pay us 45 ,000 yuan a year.

28:11The average salary in China in 2010 was closer to 35 ,000 yuan. This is with a college degree, like an office job. So this is a big deal. They don't care about your education background. They don't care about your work experience. I mean, this is unheard of. Side note, 45 ,000 yuan is about six and a half thousand US dollars. So $6 ,500, which I know might not sound like a lot of money because of the conversion rates. But if you're in America, this would be like the equivalent scenario. Someone is offering you $95 ,000 a year compared to the national salary average of$74 ,000 a year. And that$74 ,000 is with people with college degrees.

28:49They're getting corporate jobs. So$94 ,000 for someone who didn't even graduate high school, that's crazy. I mean, I think that helps put into perspective, right? How desperate they were for this type of money. And not only do you get that 45 ,000 yuan, you get a bonus when the job is complete and you land back on land. Zach's liking the idea of it. He's like, I have a girlfriend that I really love and I know that I'm not earning enough to satisfy her and marry her. Like her family's never going to let it happen. So this would be my sacrifice. Go on the ship for two years. When I get back, she's going to be my wife.

29:24And hopefully he wouldn't spend too much money on the ship because I mean, living expenses would be very low and he didn't even have time to go out and drink and hang out with friends company gives you three meals a day this is perfect side note every crew member this is kind of important later you get a weight limit of luggage and supplies that you can bring so you do get three meals a day you get a bunk bed but shampoo conditioner all of these things you need to bring for either two years or you can buy them at the store on the ship but the store is very expensive it's kind of giving like real life squid game yes like you have to weigh all of your stuff and then you know it's it's just really bizarre.

30:00Some people would use it to bring beer. Some people would use that weight to bring cigarettes, water bottles, soft drinks, instant noodles. Again, you can technically buy all of these on the ship, but it's going to be very, very expensive. On the boat, a carton of cigarettes costs about 26 US dollars. Back at home, yeah, cheap cigarettes in China can go for as low as a few dollars for a full carton. The markup is unhinged. Some of the workers had plans to make even more money though because they took out a loan. There was a guy named Lou who did this. He took out a loan, bought a ton of cigarettes, enough to stack them up from the bottom bunk to the ceiling, and the plan was to sell them later to the other workers for half the markup of the ship.

30:44So instead of$25 a carton, he was going to sell them for$15 a carton. He would still be making like$12 a carton profit. They would never get to do that though because 22 people would be murdered. December 27th, 2010, the first day on open water, everyone is gagging, hurling breakfast, lunch, and dinner over the side of the boat. I mean, just looking at the cup noodles that they stockpiled in their rooms. They want to gag. They want to throw up because the fishing company just wanted to recruit anyone that they could get. Most of the men on the boat had never been on a boat. The seasickness was something that they could not handle.

31:18They would rush to the toilets. They would rush up to the deck to just throw up. They would come back looking frail, gray, green, and their hands would just be on their temples trying to massage the nausea away. This is very interesting, but the minute that you can't see land anymore, a lot of people report feeling uneasy and it makes them feel even more seasick. It's just interesting. They say that they feel a little bit lost, like there's a lump of anxiety in their stomach when they can't see land. So they're dealing with that they're regurgitating every solid food that they've consumed in the past 48 hours.

31:51And side note about this, this is very shady, but a lot of the guys that were on the boat, there were 33 people on the boat, all men, very fascinating to note. Most of them don't even have a marine license, which means that they're not legally allowed to fish at sea and they're considered illegal laborers. The company said, it's fine, it's fine. We do this all the time. Everything will be fine. We just have to smuggle you onto the main ship. So on the main ship, Only the crew with certificates and licenses were allowed to be on board. Customs and immigration would let them through, do a check of the boat.

32:22And then 10 minutes later, a little speedboat would pull up with all of the other workers, all 18 of them that did not have their licenses. How did they get on? They just like throw down a rope. Oh. Everyone knew that this was illegal. It just happens. Yeah, it just happens. The company told the men, well, if we don't do it this way and you have to get your license, then that's money out of our pocket, which means less money for you because, you know, we got to make our profits too. So that doesn't make sense. Do you want more money in your pocket or do you want a marine license? The workers were like, I want more money in my pocket.

32:56The seasickness would last for about 16 days. From there, it was smooth sailing. The first two months of this trip, it was like a cruise more than anything. Everyone's getting over the seasickness. You wake up, walk up to the deck. You don't have work to do. The squid aren't there. You're just moving. You're trying to get to South America, you see open water for as far as you can see. And it's this incredible feeling of almost like you're conquering something. You just feel free. Then you chit chat with some of the other crew, play chess, read books. But the best was gambling. As long as they had a deck of cards.

33:31Oh, poker every day, all day. The ship was like a mini casino and everyone would slowly let their guards down and they're getting to know each other. There's like just a real oddball mixture of guys there. You had seamen who had done three years out at sea, no problem before. Some of them had gone deep sea fishing in Africa, tons of experience. Side note, one of the guys that had gone deep sea fishing in Africa, his wife really did not want him to go on this trip because on the way back home last time, they encountered pirates. It was terrifying. He could have died. So since then she was like, I just want you to be in a radius near the land because usually when you can see land, it's hard for there to be pirates of any nation, you know?

34:12So please don't go. And he's like, babe, I have to go. It's I'm just ready for it. And my friend said he needed help. They need people. If I back out now and they can't find more semen, how can I ever look at him again? So there are a lot of experienced sailors all the way down to Michael. Michael's a recent college graduate who could not find an office job. He did not graduate with anything that had anything to do with the sea. Nothing like that. So he just applied for this, which is a wild escalation of events. He was choking up, telling the rest of the man about how his mom was begging him not to go.

34:47She was yelling at him, you've never even been on a boat. You have zero experience. You've never even hung bait on a fishing line. But Michael thought, you know, this is a great way to make money, mom. And I'm trying to learn a new set of skills. Would you rather me lay around at home and do nothing or work for the next two years? Another guy was training to be a pilot and he thought that this was a great way to see the world. Some guy straight up said they didn't have anything better to do. And once they got all this cash, they were going to buy a new car. They were going to get some designer stuff when they get back.

35:18One of them said my sister was a wreck. I mean, tears streaming down her face. And I sat her down and I was like, hey, just imagine I went to prison for two years, okay? Just forget about it. But a lot of the men, They were there to pay off debt. One guy had a pig farm that got completely obliterated by a pig disease. He owed a lot of money. Charlie, he burned down a building. But none of that really mattered on the boat because there's no way for creditors to track you down on the open water. By early February 2011, the ship had been sailing in the Pacific for over a month. And it was almost Chinese New Year.

35:50There is this air of excitement and peace within the ship. Everyone's cooking up the feast. They've got eight meat dishes to share. They're sitting on the ship floor with metal bowls and disposable chopsticks. They're helping each other scoop rice. It's all these cute moments. They're laughing, joking about how when this is all over, we're going to go to each one of our hometowns and eat the hometown food. I want to try those noodles that you keep talking about from back home. They were allowed to use the ship's satellite phone to call their families back because it's Chinese New Year. And it would be the last time that many of them would ever get to talk to their loved ones.

36:26Two months before arriving back at the harbor, loud music was blasting on the ship. Everyone knew what that meant. It was time to hunt. They were hunting each other. By the time that the music cut off, people would be dead. If you were unlucky, you would be brutally stabbed and thrown overboard with nothing but the loud music ringing in your ears. And if you were really unlucky, you would still be alive when you hit the water. And then you knew that the end would be you waiting for the fins to show up. because once the sharks smell blood, they come out to feed. There are a few distinct phases that the passengers would go through before they completely snap and start playing Hunger Games on this boat.

37:06The first phase is nothing is wrong until something is wrong. Zach was in the dorm one day when he saw Lou, another crewmate, and he left his notebook laying on the bed. They were almost to Peru, so he reaches over, he's flipping around, and it's all sort of like random numbers written down. When Lou comes back into the room, Zach asks, Hey Lou, what are you writing down in your journal? Oh yeah, those are the ship's coordinates and where we are. Oh, why? Doesn't the ship track that? No reason. I just thought it'd be kind of fun. Zach kind of waited for Lou to explain further about this whole coordinate situation because it's just a little bit weird.

37:45But Lou was just an interesting man. He always looked like he was deep in thought on this boat, about something, somewhere. but he would never tell anyone what it was. Which is fascinating because by like month two, everyone is telling everybody their deepest, darkest thoughts and secrets because you don't have anyone else to talk to. All people knew about Lou was that his parents were poor farmers and he had to make money to marry his girlfriend. He was also kind of scrawny. I mean, you would never really look at this man and think, this guy is strong. This guy is muscular. But he was. When it came time to unload all the squid and carry the giant metal trays down into the freezer, Those things, like I said, they weigh 33 pounds And because of the size of the tray It's just really very difficult to balance and carry it down Lou would offer to do it for Zach Because Zach was short and pretty weak Which is crazy considering this is not an easy task And Lou's not going to get paid for Zach's portion of the work Why would he do that?

38:40It's bizarre Zach said he was thankful But at the same time, Lou was so fascinating Lou liked to look out for people on the ship but at the same time, he also liked to look down on everyone around him. So it's nice, but it's also kind of mean. He just seemed full of himself, but in a quiet, I don't even want to talk to you because I don't think you're worth it. I don't think I should waste my breath on you. That's the type of guy he was. But what could you say? He's the squid king on the boat. There was one month where he caught seven tons of squid, which is about 14 ,000 pounds. That's about the weight of an elephant in squid.

39:15or imagine two and a half SUVs parked in front of you, but instead of SUVs, it's just giant piles of squid in a single month. He wasn't even an experienced fisherman, but he knew how to catch squid and he made it a point to help everyone around him. Like there was this sense of teamwork with him around. It was really tough. It was really bad, but everybody was there for the same reason and it just felt nice to be working towards something until two of the workers got sick. It was pretty bad. They couldn't even get up from their beds. There was no doctor on board, limited medications. I mean, nobody knew what was wrong with them.

39:53And even then, they were in some really unsanitary conditions. So it's even harder for their immune systems to work overtime to help them recover. One of the guys that fell sick was Lou's best friend, Little Minion. He was the youngest on the entire ship, 19-year-old Jin. He was so sick, he was laying in bed asking Lou, can you call the company just request me be taken off this ship they don't have to pay me for the past like four months of work I don't care I just need to go home and see a doctor it's that bad I don't even need any of the money Jin's parents were from Beijing and they had a bit of money they had a house they had a car which is a pretty big deal in Beijing the only reason Jin ever came was because he liked Lu and he wanted to be a sailor that's it he was in it for the ride The company rejected his request to go home to see a doctor.

40:42I mean, if you want to go home, then the ship had to go all the way back? Well, they can request that a smaller boat come and get you and you can pay for that, pay for your fare back. But not only that, the captain of the boat, Captain Lee, instead of helping the workers, he called the company like a little snitch and made sure to stop their payments for a month while they recovered. The two sick people. The two sick men were really upset about this. I mean, I think everybody on the ship was because they had all been working so hard. There was a sense of teamwork established. And now it's confirmed.

41:12If you get sick from working your hardest, nothing you did matters because the company will stop paying you. They won't even appreciate that you exhausted yourself and that's why you got sick. Even the captain isn't on your side rooting for you. And this just planted a tiny little seed in everybody's minds. The captain in this company, they're not on our team. and then one comment did it in. Everybody was sitting around eating when one of the workers looked pensive. Everyone's like, what's wrong? Nothing, I just, you know, it's probably nothing. What is it? We were supposed to depart on December 28th, but do you guys remember how we left a day early on December 27th?

41:55Which means technically our contract doesn't make sense because our contract is December 28th to December 28th, 2012. But what if there's some sort of like legal loophole? Because technically we started working December 27th. What if that means our contract isn't really valid and it doesn't mean anything because we didn't start work on that day? Does that mean they can get away with not paying us? I mean, I'm sure that's dumb, right? It's a big company. There's no way. That doesn't make sense, right? Yeah. The workers glance around and the seeds start sprouting roots. A few of them are whispering in the dorms that night, and they decide the next day that they would just ask the captain to clarify a few things in their contract.

42:35No big deal, you know? They sit the captain down and ask about the specifics, and if they're still going to get paid the 45 ,000 yuan. Well, you were going to get paid 45 ,000 yuan if you didn't catch any squid. What? Yeah, if you caught no squid, you would be guaranteed 45 ,000 yuan a year. But if you catch squid, you don't get the guaranteed pay. you get the base pay plus commission what well how much is the base pay 1 000 yuan a month so you're only making 12 000 yuan a year when you're promised 45 000 yuan and you're just gonna hope that you catch enough squid individually to make the rest in commission so to put that in perspective think about how devastating this is these men came out into the ship in the middle of nowhere without their loved ones to work 16 hours a day in some of the most brutal conditions imaginable and their base pay a month would be guaranteed to be 140 usd a month so this is like a scam contract yeah wow the men were distraught but the captain reassured them well you have the commission structure so technically you can make 45 000 yuan a year he explained the commission structure and it only made things worse everyone found out that even if they worked as hard as lou and caught 30 tons of squid in three months which is the size of a shipping container per person or the weight of a fire truck or a yacht in squid.

43:58If they caught that much squid every three months for the next two years, they would make 3 ,400 yuan a month or about 488 USD a month. If they did not even lift a finger, if they never caught a squid, they would have made 523 USD a month. A lot of things are wrong with this. I mean, finding this out was not great for morale. Your boss is like, I'm going to pay you a thousand dollars a month for doing nothing, for just existing. But if you work your ass off to the point of killing your body, mental state, I'm going to pay you less than that. But additionally, most people weren't even catching as much as Lou.

44:34They were going to be making a lot less than what they thought they were going into this for. When Lou got word of this pay structure, he sat there and started doing all the mental calculations. There was no way out. He screwed himself because he had gotten a loan for all those cigarettes. Technically, he should be the best off because he's the one catching most of the squid. But that loan, he took it from the fishing company to buy cigarettes. He did the math. Even if he worked as hard as he did for the past three months, for the next two years, he would barely make enough to cover the loan he took out for the cigarettes.

45:09Worse than that, worst case scenario, if the squid fishing gets slower, he might have to perform hard labor for two years and still owe the fishing company money. Oh, this is like straight up those squid games. Oh my gosh. So for a while, everyone just sat there soaking it in. A lot of the guys never hired attorneys to look over their contracts. First, they didn't have the funds to, but second, they just assumed there was no way that such a big company would screw them over like that. Since that day, nobody's mind was on fishing anymore. They were all pulling each other off to the side, whispering about something, planning something.

45:44There's a saying in China, it's very straightforward. If it's cheap, it's not going to be good quality. If it's good quality, it's not going to be cheap. So when the crew found out that they're making peanuts like next to nothing, they're gonna stop trying. Other squid fishing boats nearby would complete their catch at around 8 to 9 a.m., but 2682 would finish at around 2 p.m. Nobody was really trying anymore. Some of the workers would straight up disappear from the deck. They'd be found sleeping in their cabins. Even Lou, his mind is not on fishing. A few of the workers tried to talk to the captain and say, please, just let us go home then.

46:19Not a single one of us want to be here anymore. We're 17 ,000 miles away from home. I'm not wasting all this fuel spending months taking you back home because you don't know how to read a damn contract before signing it. Besides, you don't have a license. No boat, including myself, is going to be willing to smuggle you 18 back in through the borders. So remember, 18 of them did not have licenses. You have to work whether you like it or not. But let this be a lesson to read contracts better next time. And that is when they entered the next phase of madness. If they're not with you, they're against you.

46:51And from the get-go, there were four groups of friends. There were also a lot of relatives on board, which makes this whole thing even more insane that 22 people get murdered. But out of the four groups of friends, there were the Dalians. Dalian is a part of China on the eastern coast. It's actually very close to North Korea. Now, the Dalian group was led by Captain Lee, the captain of the boat. There were about 10 people in his inner circle, and most of them were professional sailors, and they were part of the management team on the ship. So none of them really did any of the actual squid fishing.

47:21They are there to make sure the ship stayed afloat for two years. The chef was included in this group. I mean, they were the closest to the company. In terms of hierarchy, they're at the top with Captain Li sitting on a throne. Then you had the Mongolians led by Bao Di. Now, they were really able to keep to themselves a lot because most of them spoke Mongolian and none of the rest could understand them. There were only like four or five of them. Then you had the Northeast group, which was run by Liu. They only had about five people in the group. One of them was Mongolian. The other one was Dalian.

47:52But they felt more allegiance to Lu rather than their hometowns or like the province that they were from. And the other 12, they were the neutral group. And immediately after Captain Li refuses to take the ship back home, the leader of the Northeast group, Lu, and the leader of the Mongolian group, Baudi, they start talking. They would rant to each other whispering, you know, we work so hard, but this company is a scam. They don't even pay us minimum wage. and they think that we clearly won't get the money stated in the contract. That's why they're acting like this. That's why they're not even listening to us.

48:23We want to go back. Slowly, these rants, they turned into a solution. If the captain doesn't want to take us home, then we force him. We hijack this ship. Lou and Baldi were in. So were their groups. But both of them were trying to convince the others from the neutral group. Lou sat them down and said, on the way here, I wrote down the coordinates for fun. I didn't think it was going to be useful. But even without the captain, I can retrace our steps and get us back home. And when we get back, I know a pretty good lawyer. We can all sue the company together. A lot of the neutral people were kind of hesitant.

48:58Liu told them, think about it. And as he walked out of the room, he turned around and said, you know, one more thing. It's not a crime to kill someone in international waters. Everyone except the management team, the Dalian group, knew about the plan to take over the ship. But not everyone was on board with Liu and Bao Di. They were scared. If they weren't successful, the captain would beat them up all to a pulp. And that was probably just the start of it. And the plan seemed unhinged. Lu and Bao Di's group were going around hiding all the knives and sharp objects on the boat. They were going to hold the captain hostage and hope that he just guided them back towards China.

49:32Now, this plan was kind of in the works for a few weeks. The whole thing bedded on the fact that they had to refuel. So the boat was going to make it back to a port in Peru, refuel, And that would be the time that they finally take over because they need all that fuel to get all the way to China. They can't run out of fuel and they can't show up at a port with the captain held hostage. That's not going to work. So June 16th is the day that they're waiting for. They departed December 27th, June 16th. So the whole time they still have to work. They have to make sure that Captain Lee has no idea about their plan to overtake the ship.

50:05And I would say every other week it was a new thing going on. One week it'd be like the plan is on. we gotta do this. Then the next week, nobody would be talking about it anymore. So a lot of people thought maybe everybody's kind of cooled off. The plan is off. But Captain Lee would make sure it happened. If you talked back to Captain Lee, if you were a little too slow, you would walk back to your cabin with a black eye. Or worse, he would degrade you, scream at you, threaten to throw you overboard to the sharks unless you get down on your knees on the squid ink drenched sticky floors and apologized to him.

50:40And every time he did this, the others would just glance at each other and they would feel a lot more sure about their plan. But it wouldn't be Captain Lee that dies. It'd be Chef Zia, the replacement chef that would be the first to be murdered. June 16th, 2011, the ship refueled at a port in Peru and it was time. That night, Jin, this is Lou's right-hand man, the 19-year-old, Lou, Bao Di, the Mongolian leader, and a few others, they barge into the captain's cabin. What the hell are you guys doing? They're standing there. Take us home. No, I'm not doing this again. Go back to your stations now.

51:16The captain turned around expecting them to leave, but he turned back and they were still there. Lou reaches into his pocket, takes out a knife and stabs it straight into the captain's thigh. Blood starts gushing out. The others knock the captain over. They just start pummeling him. All their frustrations, taking it out directly on his face. They lift him up, sit him down on the chair, wrap a long, thick rope around him. He's got nowhere to go. He's tied to this chair now. If you don't take us home, we will throw you overboard to the sharks. Okay, okay, I'll take you home. None of this is necessary.

51:50I'll take you home. The orders were given. All workers were to reel in the fishing equipment and prepare to set sail. When that announcement went off, immediately the Dalian group felt like something was wrong. They rushed towards the captain's quarters, but they're stopped outside by two of Lou's minions. They're screaming at each other at this point. They can even hear Lou screaming from inside the captain's room. I'll kill all of you. A few of the captain's men are putting their hands in the air, showing their palms like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, it's not that serious. If every single person wants to go home, we'll take you home.

52:21Really, like you don't have to be like this. Just tell us right now and that'll be the end of it. We can turn around. It looks like everything's going smoothly, but in comes Chef Zia. He managed to find a kitchen knife that they didn't hide, and he's screaming, who do you sons of bitches think you are trying to hijack a ship? This was not going to end well. The whole trip, Chef Zia and one of Lou's guys had been going at it. Like they literally tried to stab each other last week before this. They hated each other. And now both of them had knives in their hands standing in front of the captain's room.

52:52They're standing there yelling at each other. And then Chef Zia decides he's had enough. He walks past the other guys, shoulder butting one of them on his way into the captain's room. and from behind he hears a sharp noise. He looks down and there's blood coming out of his mouth. He had been stabbed in the back, literally. One of the other guys takes an iron bar and strikes him in the back of the knees so he falls down into the kneeling position, coughing up blood. The guy that Chef Zia had problems with walks around to face him and he's towering over him because Chef Zia is kneeling now, stares into his eyes, lifts his arm, and plunges the knife into his chest now.

53:35Lou runs over, grabs the knife from his little minion, his friend, and instead of stopping him or telling him, this isn't the way we're handling things, he starts stabbing the chef's butt and thighs. Everyone on the deck could hear the screams coming from the captain's quarters, and then they heard a splash, followed by silence. They would find out later that Chef Zia was still alive after all the stabbings. Lou ordered his men to pick him up and throw him overboard for the sharks. Zach was down in the deck area when this happened, and he remembered 19-year-old Jin coming down from the captain's room, and he said, hey, you got any cigarettes?

54:12He sounded so normal. Zach was so scared, he quietly passed him one, and Jin's hand was shaking when he took it from Zach. He couldn't even light it. He just said, Chef Zia's dead. Everything changed that night on that ship. Zach was called up to lose group by the man who stabbed Chef Zia, the guy that hated Chef Zia. Zach's taking as long as he can because who knows? Is he getting stabbed next? I mean, he didn't have problems with anyone on this boat, but like these people are unhinged. He goes there slowly. Lance, the guy who killed Chef Zia, puts his arm around him. Zach, why don't you go and get some sleep?

54:49We like breakfast early. You're going to be our next chef. Okay, sir. So his name is Lance. Yeah. First killer. First killer. Lance led him to the stairway and pushed him forward. There was blood everywhere from Chef Sia's death. Zach wasn't wearing shoes. He was barefoot. He looked back and Lance was like, come on, go on. He stepped into the blood. And when he got to his cabin, he calmly wiped his feet, took off his rain gear, and he laid down in his bed and he said he could not fall asleep the entire night. He was so scared for his life. He just laid there thinking, what the hell is going to happen next year?

55:27Actually, nobody on that ship really slept that night. They were so scared. Bao Di, the leader of the Mongolian group, he tried to ease the tension and he said, if we're down a crew, we're down a crew. It's fine. When we get back, we'll say that he fell into the sea or was dragged down by a fish. These things happen at sea all the time. It's not a big deal. That did not help anyone. Nobody got sleep. The next day, the ship was sailing back towards China. Captain Li was kept under close watch, and the rest of the management Dalian group were scared to do anything against the orders. They were just doing as they were told.

55:58Everyone felt like they had to watch their backs. Like, they could not turn their back on anyone. They always had to be alert, always listening, and they still had 50 days to go on this ship to get back to China. It was clear that the new captains were Liu and Baozi. They took turns on duty. They watched the captain. They made sure that the boat was headed towards back home. They patrolled the deck with knives and sticks. Zack focused on cooking. The cargo still had fresh vegetables, so he tried his best to cook the yummiest food because who knows, maybe you get off for not even cooking good food.

56:27Who even knows anymore? And eventually, slowly, everyone starts getting relaxed again, playing cards, smoking around each other, drinking. Well, everybody but Lou. Something was happening with Lou, up there in his mind. Lou did not like hearing the whispers. If he felt like you were whispering with someone, he would sneak up on you so quietly, you wouldn't even know that he's standing inches away from your head. And then he would loudly ask, what are you talking about? Oh, geez, nothing. Sometimes he would scream from afar, you guys over there, what are you gathering and speaking so softly about?

57:01Are you afraid someone might hear you? He felt like he was going crazy. He knew that people were whispering about him. They were trying to kill him. He could feel it. Lou went around double checking, triple checking that all the knives were confiscated. The life wraps were tied up with steel bars and the life jackets were also locked up so that nobody could escape. Nobody could hurt him. Lou was suspicious of everyone, even his closest friends. Zach wasn't Lou's close friend, but he noticed that something very dark was happening inside of Lou. He was convinced the management team were going to kill him and take credit for saving the ship and crew from the hijackers.

57:32He thought they're going to go to the company and say, look what I did. Look how I stopped the hijackers. Pay me extra money. The others tried to calm Lou down. They wouldn't do that. That would just be so dumb. You know, I think at this point, all of us, we just want to go home safely and put this behind us. But one night, one of Lou's men pulled him to the side in the cabin and he whispered, They're trying to fight back. They've asked me to join up against you. Go up against you and all of your friends. Who is? The management team. Lou was upset but not surprised. What else did they say? Beau, the guy who was telling him everything he knew that the managers were talking about, He said, July 20th, near the coast of Hawaii, they're going to do something.

58:11So instead, that day, Lou ordered the slaughter of six men from the management group and Bo. If Bo was out here spilling all the secrets of the management team, he could not be trusted with Lou's secrets. The day of the hunt, Lou used the loudspeakers to play music. He didn't want the neutral people to freak out at the sounds of murder. but all it did was put everyone more on edge because it's not like a soundproof vacuum. They can hear screams. They can see blood. They can hear splashes of people screaming as they're being thrown overboard. It just feels like they're in some sort of horror movie.

58:46The second person to be killed on that boat was stabbed through the back as well. The knife went through his entire body. He was still alive and trying to run away from the killers but they blocked his path and just went into this frenzy, stabbing him. When he finally gave up fighting, they dragged him like a rag doll to the edge of the boat and threw him in the water. The guy they just killed, his brother was on the boat too, so they needed to get him next. They ran into the brother's cabin. It was a coordinated attack. One person grabbed the brother's arms, pinned them upwards on the bed. The others just started stabbing everywhere.

59:18The bed, the bed sheets, the mattress completely soaked in blood. It was dripping onto the floor underneath. He was dead when he was thrown overboard, like his brother. Next, the killer started hunting the rest of the management team. They lured out Peter from his bedroom. They were waiting behind the door. The minute he stepped out, they stabbed him. Peter started freaking out, decided to make a run for it. He ran to the deck and he had a split second choice to make. Either die by stabbing like the others or drown. He looked down and he jumped to his death with the squid.

1:00:02Lou was content, but he wasn't done. He went into the cabins, dragged another one out, stabbed him, threw him into the sea, and there was just one more person he wanted to kill that day. Wang. They barge into Wang's cabin, just start stabbing him everywhere. Wang was asleep, so he woke up screaming in pain. He's trying to grab anything nearby to hit the killers with. He ends up falling from his bed. They stab, disembowel him, and they taunt him. What's the matter? Your guts are spilling out. Oh no, what to do now? When they were done, the killers were drenched in blood. Zach was in that same room as Wang, laying frozen in his bunk bed.

1:00:39Lou straightened up, turned. He's covered in blood and he saw Zach laying there. He looked at him and said, I asked you to join us at the start, but you didn't. Wait, Zach is a roommate there? With Wang. So he just witnessed the whole murder? And he did not move. He's just laying there in fear. He just looks at him and says, I asked you to join us at the start, but you wouldn't. Are you scared now? Zach was terrified. It seemed like Lou was excited after the killing. He had this huge smile on his face that Zach would never forget, but it would not be the last time that he saw it. Lou was no longer a man.

1:01:13He was like an animal. Lou smiled and said, Don't worry, Zach. I'm not going to touch you. You're like my brother. And with that, he walked out, leaving a trail of blood behind him. Zach did not believe a single word he said. He had known him for a few months, and there were already 10 dead people. Who could believe anything Lou said? Zach said, you can't imagine how powerful Lou became when he was killing people. He was a completely different man. When Lou's men were too scared to actually stab someone to death, Lou would walk over to, quote, show him how it's done. He would ruthlessly plunge knives into victims.

1:01:46And it was the full descent of Lou's madness. He wasn't even done killing. He was no longer the Lou that anybody recognized. And I don't want to say that to give this man an excuse, but he truly becomes more and more unhinged. And I don't think that he's insane. Like, I don't think he could use that as a defense, but he's still an animal in prison. Let's just leave it at that. That night, the hunt continued. Beau, the informant that warned Lou about all of this, he was stabbed and thrown into the water. This just became a pattern. Men were either stabbed and thrown into the water, dead or alive.

1:02:22Others were given a choice, and I don't think they're being nice about it. They just want to torture you. They would give you the choice. Don't be stabbed and see if you can swim. Swim to land. Maybe you'll make it. Jump. Sometimes Lou would get all Pirates of the Caribbean or I don't know what movie or what reality he's living in. But he would make the man stand on the edge of the boat and he would kick them in the chest. Like literally kick them off the boat into the cold dark sea. This is the Pacific Ocean. So now he's killing more people? Yeah, just for fun now. Anyone he thinks is going to kill him, he's like, I might as well just kill him.

1:02:58I don't even know. Maybe they're my friend. But if I feel like they looked at me a little weird, I might as well just kill them. This is the Pacific Ocean. On average, it's about 13 ,000 feet deep. I mean, there's really no answer on what this would feel like. But one netizen said, there are problems when you're thrown into the ocean, deep into the ocean. First danger, drowning. But let's say you have a life jacket, which these men didn't. Or let's say you managed to keep your head above water. Great. The next danger is cold. Cold water extracts heat from you very, very quickly. In Arctic water, you have less than 15 minutes till things in your body start breaking down.

1:03:32In 60 degree water, maybe a few hours. Warmer tropical water, maybe days. But then you have the danger of wildlife, sharks. Time estimate on that? Unknown. But let's say you can overcome all those things. The next issue is MASD, moisture associated skin damage. The netizen writes, you know how your skin gets all wrinkly in the pool after a few hours, your skin can start to blister. After a day in water, your skin can start to peel off and that would, without a doubt, attract the aforementioned wildlife. Time to death? Probably a few days max. And the beating tropical sun is going to make it pretty hard to avoid drinking the salty water all around you.

1:04:13Even if you have the discipline of a Navy SEAL, you could still end up drinking some accidentally. Drinking this water is only going to dehydrate you faster. Also, the salty ocean will absorb some of your fluids through contact osmosis. Although dehydration is said to be fatal in about three days, it'd probably be two days. After the first hunt on the ship, the loud music cut off and a total of 11 people were gone from the ship. There were 33 people. Now there's only 22 people on the ship. But it was supposed to be 23. Lou was sure. He thought about which people he wanted to kill. It was premeditated.

1:04:49So where did the extra person go? Where did they go? Were they hiding somewhere? Lou starts losing it, trying to count the life jackets, making sure none of the rafts are missing. The college student Michael who came because he couldn't find a job, he was missing. Because everybody snaps in different ways. Michael had just graduated college and he knew even if he made it all the way back to land, he would never be able to look at himself or people ever the same. Not after all the blood that he saw on this boat. So he jumped off the ship to his death. When Lou found out, he had this incredibly condescending laugh and he said, why did he jump?

1:05:24I wasn't going to kill him, that poor kid. I was going to use him as my spy. Michael had snapped and Zach, he was in full survival mode. His brain blocked out how bad it was. He was blocking out everything that he was seeing. The only time he kind of had some sort of idea was when he was prepping meals. He went from prepping 32 meals to now just 22. Once when he was serving meals, he got so anxious. He went up to the deck and he started pacing. He felt like he was going to have a panic attack. And one of Lou's guys came up to him and said, stop stressing out. Nobody has it in it for you. We're all buddies.

1:06:00We're not going to touch you. Look, if you get a proper job one day, I'll look out for you, you know? But all of it just sounded so fake. Zach snapped at him crying. Just warn me first if you guys decide to kill me, okay? And I'll just throw myself overboard, save you the trouble. Zach started looking for small spaces to hide on the boat. I mean, there was nowhere. He even briefly thought about getting into the freshwater tank, but it was so easy to spot him inside and there's no way for him to close the lid from the inside. He tried to rip up any sort of foam insulation in the ship to see if he could crawl into the insulation.

1:06:33He tried stealing a life jacket or a raft. I mean, anything, something. All he came down to was if he's out in that water and he's still alive, he can maybe eat fish eyes. They have drinkable water content in them. That's all he knew. He was taught, eat fish eyes if you're thirsty. But even that's pointless. In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, they can't even see land nearby. The closest land to them was Japan. And Japan was a thousand miles away at this point. If you took a boat, you would travel a thousand nautical miles in five to ten days depending on the boat. Five to ten days on a boat. There was no way.

1:07:09That's if the sharks didn't even get Zach first. What was the point of staying alive in the water when he was going to die anyway? Zach's new mission became just to stay alive for as long as possible because if he were killed and thrown overboard, at least he could be a little bit closer to home. Maybe his parents could put him to rest. As they got near to Japan, Lou told everybody on that boat, 22 people, that he had a friend in Japan that could get them fake passports, but they would need to send money to get it done. He wanted all of them to use the satellite phone to call their families, ask them to transfer$1 ,000 into Lou's girlfriend's account, and she would get them fake passports.

1:07:46There was just something about the way that Lou was urging everyone to do it. The message was very clear. The underlying message was, I don't care if you get these fake passports or not because I don't think you're going to get off this boat. The Mongolian group were now getting sick of Lu. They were sick of him bossing them around, acting like they were dumb. They knew what he was planning to do. They knew where that money was going. The plan to overthrow Lu was in the works by the Mongolians. The first step they decided was to create chaos within Lu's group. Baudi, the Mongolian leader, would pull aside 19-year-old Jin, Liu's 19 year old best friend slash sidekick And he would tell Jin that Liu plans to kill everyone else on the boat Minus a few of his old buddies And he was planning on escaping to Japan without the rest of them And Jin's not a good candidate to keep alive First of all he's too young He's too immature Liu might feel like it's a risk And he's still too frail from being sick Bao Di's plan was to plant seeds in Jin's mind Make him want to move over to the Mongolian side And it seemed like it was working Jin agreed with them He has been ruthless.

1:08:49I feel like he's changed. He keeps pressuring me to call my family to give them money. I don't know. It's just so heartless. Side note, Bao Di approached Jin because Jin was actually from Mongolia. So his parents now lived in Beijing, but he was from Mongolia. So there's a bit of an alliance there. He chose him out of everybody else. Immediately after their conversation, Jin went to Liu and said, I have something to tell you. What is it? It's really serious. Bao Di wants me killed. how did you know yes four days after the last hunt the one that killed a good chunk of the boat off lou was planning the final slaughter wait so so jen the little kid immediately sold the mongolians out to lou yeah wow lou pulled up a chair in front of the captain who was still being held hostage by the way he sat in front of him elbows on his knees and he said i've got seven or eight men's blood on my hand and if the rest of you want to live you'll have to get blood on your hands too, including you, Captain.

1:09:46Your best friend, Officer Wang, is dead. Bao D killed him ruthlessly. I mean, I'm evil, but he was really brutal with it. Stabbed him over and over and over again. I mean, I thought the guy was possessed. I didn't know where he had the energy. Not when it came to squid fishing, that's for sure. The Captain was locked in the control room during the hunt, and there was loud music playing, so he had no idea who killed who. He just knew that some of his best friends on that boat were dead. He knew there was blood everywhere and a third of the crew were gone after that night. And now Lou's telling him it was Bao Di who killed your best friend.

1:10:19Captain Lee starts getting worked up at the realization that Bao Di killed his best friend and Lou tells him there's a way to get revenge. Kill Bao Di. Kill him and we'll let you live too. Lou's favorite thing on this boat was having his friends kill people. He called it getting their hands dirty. If they don't have dirty hands, they would have no incentive to not turn them in when they get to land. He needed everybody to be bonded by blood and murder. He told Captain Lee if he got his hands dirty, he would let him live. Captain Lee agreed. But there was another boy on that boat that really wanted to help.

1:10:54Charlie. Charlie is Zach's friend who introduced him to this squid fishing, squid games torture. Charlie really wanted to be accepted by Lou. He practically showed up at Lou's cabin door on a daily basis, Just begging him. Being like, if you ever need anything, I'm here for you. Like, don't you ever worry. If you ever need anything at all. If you need someone to kill someone, I'm here for you. I can help you. Some argued that Charlie did everything he could to survive. Others argued, the guy is just bloodthirsty. I guess it's up for you to decide. But Lou decided to use Captain Lee and Charlie, who had been somewhat neutral since all of this.

1:11:27And he would use the two of them to lure Bao, Bao D, onto the deck. That night, Bao D came onto the deck alone. Charlie snuck up behind him, stabbed him in the back. Captain Lee came up in front of him, pretended to catch him from his fall, and then stabbed him through the chest. Together, the captain and Charlie took out their knives and plunged again and again in the front and back in unison on the boat. Bao Di broke free, stumbled to the edge of the boat, and threw himself over the edge. Charlie smiled because it was his first kill ever, and he smeared all the blood over his face and screamed, I've been bloodied now.

1:12:05Lou lured out the rest of the Mongolian inner circle to come back onto the deck. Three of them were forced to jump into the ocean. Two of them were stabbed to death and then flung over the side of the ship into the water. And at this point, there were only 16 people left on the boat. Lou was exhausted from his night of killing. He ordered everybody, stop! Mainly himself, and he gathered everybody's knives. He went back to his room with two of his minions guarding the door. But that night, after getting zero sleep, after hearing all the screams and just trying to ignore it and act like nothing was happening, trying to act invisible so that he wasn't randomly targeted next.

1:12:38Zach was laying in bed when he feels a tap on his shoulder. It was one of Lou's guys. Lou wants to talk to you. Zach froze. His head starts spinning. He's thinking, okay, I'm next. He gets up as slowly as possible, savoring the last moments of his life. He's dragging his feet, following the henchman to the captain's cabin that Lou had taken over. The door opens and Lou is sitting on the bed. He looks up. Don't be scared. It's nothing. We'll be in Japan in a couple of days and you've got nothing to worry about. You don't have blood on your hands. Anyone without blood on their hands can just go back to China and everything will be fine.

1:13:12Then he looked at Zach and said, go to the kitchen and cook some noodles. We're starting to get hungry. Zach gulped, opened the door and walked out with his life. He was one of the lucky ones. Out of the 33, like I said, only 15 were left now, but we know that only 11 come back. So we still have four more to go. There were just a few days out from Japan when everyone starts scrambling at 4 a.m. The ship had suddenly lost power. The engines were down. The lights are down. The entire ship is tilting to one side. Everyone's belongings are just crashing into the sides of the walls. Everyone's running out of their bunk beds, running towards the deck and the captain's quarters to figure out what the hell is happening.

1:13:52Lou orders a thorough check of the ship and he discovers two things. There were only 14 people left on the boat. So one person is missing and the ship's main valve was open. The ship's valve lets water into the main area of the ship. They were able to stop it, block it, stop the water that's coming in, but it's too late. The ship feels like it's slowly sinking. It was discovered that in the middle of the night while everybody slept, one of the engineers left alive from the management team, opened the ship's valves deliberately trying to kill everyone on board and then jumped into the water himself.

1:14:23Lou ordered everyone to use the water pump to help pump out the water. But when that wasn't working fast enough, he ordered them to tie together all the floatable things like planks of wood, anything. Float them together. We need to get all the life rafts out. They really only had like one working life raft that was inflatable. And they need to stock it with food. So if this ship goes down, at least they have food and they can try and survive out in the open waters. and when the ship kept tilting dramatically to one side, they did the last thing you want to do after committing mass murder on a boat.

1:14:54They sent out a distress signal so that they could be found. The boat was going down. Either they all die out at sea or they try to find a way out of this. Lu's survival instinct was very strong. So there were three people that were now loading up this life raft and they had plopped it into the water. It's working. So now it's up to them to climb down the ladder and put the food in. So they do. And Zach sees them floating away. And at first he's confused and he thought something bad was happening. So he threw them a rope. But one of the men on the raft grabs the rope. He throws at them, throws it back into the water and he screams, they have knives.

1:15:32They're planning on killing more men. We're not coming back. By the time Lou saw what was happening, the raft was so far gone out, it was the size of your fist. Lou did not scream or curse like everyone expected him to. he just stared into the water. He slowly sat down on the deck. Everyone got quiet. The boat is sinking. The raft is gone. The distress signals were sent out. But who knows if people are ever coming. And even if they did, they were going to die for their crimes. After a long pause, Lou got up and said, it's fine. If they rescue us, we blame them for everything. The people on the raft, they killed everyone, left us for dead.

1:16:06That's what we say. Nobody was listening to him, though. They were staring behind him at the blue water. He whipped around and the raft was drifting back to the boat. The current was sending the raft back straight into the ship. And no amount of peddling was helping the escapees get away from the ship. And any humanity left in some of these people broke that moment. They became full on animals. There's a very famous quote by Friedrich Nietzsche. If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss also gazes into you. And maybe these men had been gazing too long into the abyss of the ocean because now they were animal.

1:16:45It had only been eight months. When that raft floated back, all of them grabbed knives, squid knives, anything they could. And their spit was spewing out of their mouths. They were screaming. Their eyes were crazed. They grabbed all the weapons. Veins were popping out of their necks. And they started chucking weapons at the raft. They were hunting for humans again. Many of the ones on the raft, the three of them were stabbed. knives were getting thrown and embedded into their arms sides thighs the raft blood was seeping out of the raft and making the water around them red one of the men song he jumped into the water and started swimming towards the ladder of the ship begging lou to spare his life lou ordered him to be pulled in he had a head wound he was bleeding the others they escaped but they were screaming in the water for their lives because the sharks are coming soon they could smell the blood Lou squats down next to Song on the deck and he grabs a paper towel and puts it to his head.

1:17:43He turns around and he said, Zach, Xavier, you guys are the only ones that don't have blood on your hands. Throw him into the water. So he literally only brought him up so that these two could get blood on their hands. Zach was like, what? Like I said, you guys are the only ones. Xavier was so scared he grabbed the nearby squid knife and he braced himself and started speed walking towards Song but Lou stopped him and said too much of a mess just tie him up and throw him into the water so that's what they did and the whole time Song was begging Lou please we're brothers remember why are you ditching me you don't hate me that much right I promise I'm not gonna say anything when I get back Lou just watched quietly as Song was lifted and thrown to the water.

1:18:28And then everything went silent. And almost like some sort of pirate legend, a typhoon hit, washing off a lot of the blood on the deck and buying the crew some time before the distract signal could be intercepted and people would come to rescue them. For some reason, the boat did not sink. It didn't sink, but the engines were no longer capable of turning back on so they can't move. So they're just stuck in the water, going with the way of the current. Lu ordered everybody clean up the blood and while the storm raged on and the rain was pouring in Lu went over the plan over and over again everyone took turns memorizing it Bao Di and his men killed the management team off and then the four that died on the raft they're the ones that killed Bao Di and the Mongolians and then they escaped leaving us for dead trying to sink the ship the last time Zach saw Lu was in prison Zach was walking past Lu's cell, Lou was laying in bed the same way he laid on the bed on the boat.

1:19:25It's like nothing had changed. He was still on the boat in his mind, it looked like. Lou smiled at Zach through the bars. He lifted one of his hands, pointed two fingers at Zach, cocked it like a gun, shooting it at Zach, and he smiled. That was the last time Zach saw Lou before Lou died. all 11 quote survivors of the boat were found guilty the sentences were handed out november 14 2012 which side note lou's mom even said none of this would have happened if the victims were strong swimmers i guess implying everyone could have swam away from a homicidal maniac it was just a wild statement to make in court six of the men were sentenced to death the other five were given lesser sentences in varying degrees because i guess the courts decided they didn't play as active of a role in the killings zach was released after four years on good behavior and on his way out he saw 19 year old Jin and Zach asked the guards to wait.

1:20:22He got up to the steel bars and asked Jin, hey do you need anything? I'm getting out I can mail you something. 23 year old Jin smiled and said, don't worry about it my parents are sending me stuff but look after yourself and just forget all this happened. And with that he smiled and he waved at Zach. Jin had been sentenced to death. Lu Jin along with four others were executed in 2016. Lou decided in prison that he was going to escape He tried to convince his cellmate to help him He was caught And instead of, I don't know, putting him into like solitary confinement They just tied him to his bed every day By all four limbs Yeah, he was like that for four years until he was executed Shinfa Food Company, the company that sent the ships out They compensated the victims around$60 ,000 each Some victims' relatives stated they were pressured by the food company To not talk to the media about anything And in the end, nothing happened to this food company.

1:21:17And a lot of these fishing companies in China, if you will even just Google like squid fishing industry, it is scary. There have been bodies that have been washed ashore, notes in water bottles filled with rice that have been washed ashore. Random people from Southeast Asia that have been recruited to work on these ships, they would be just dumped on the ports, like literally about to die. and they were all on these squid fishing boats. Like the stories coming out of there are really terrifying and nobody's talking about it. Nobody. We're just eating calamari because I guess it's not something, it wasn't even on my radar, you know?

1:22:00It was never something that comes up on TikTok or is on the news of like, you guys will never guess what happened. It just kind of gets buried with everything else going on. But it is, it's something I would look into if you guys are into stuff like that or just curious, intrigued, want to do something. Zach is now back in his hometown taking care of his mom. His girlfriend, the whole reason he went on this fishing trip for, she ended up moving away. And Zach knows that he could technically go looking for her and explain to her what happened and try to win her over the love of his life. But he can't.

1:22:32He says he feels embarrassed even at the idea of seeing her again. Because he's just a village boy and she's in Shanghai now. and that is the story of the crazy eight months at sea i mean i just kept thinking about this story because right now there's a cruise that's going on for nine months and i know obviously the situation is different but this is i think the world's longest cruise is nine months it's happening right now i think recently it got flooded there was a little bit of drama on board and i just can't imagine being out at sea i know they stop by the ports and they don't go as deep into the sea as the squid fishers, nor are they in, you know, it's a luxury cruise.

1:23:09It's like $70 ,000 per person for nine months. Yeah. What? All food included and everything, but still it's unhinged. So again, it's a luxury experience compared to this, but I think just the idea of being stuck on a ship with that many people, strangers, it just feels scary. But that's it for today's video. Let me know in the comments, what are your thoughts on this case? Do you think that any 33 people left on a boat would succumb to this under the exact circumstances that they were in how would you have handled it and do you think zach is a survivor or he's also a villain let me know in the comments and stay safe i will see you guys on sunday bye