National Geographic Channel to Premiere New Series LAWLESS OCEANS, Today

The world's waters have become a Wild West, where criminals can operate with impunity largely beyond the reach of law enforcement. In 2014, cell-phone footage was posted on Youtube from a mysterious address in Fiji, showing an unthinkable crime - four gruesome murders at sea. The crime footage went viral and made international headlines for its disturbingly callous brutality. Four men are filmed clinging to floating wreckage in the middle of the sea. Shots ring out. And the men are killed one by one. Perhaps just as chilling as the bloodshed are the onlookers who are heard laughing and shown smiling directly into the camera lens.

In National Geographic's LAWLESS OCEANS, which premieres Tuesday, January 10, beginning at 9/8c with double-stacked episodes, internationally renowned special investigator Karsten von Hoesslin is on a worldwide trail to piece together the truth behind these mysterious murders. RELENTLESS in his pursuit for clues and angles, Karsten tracks down and interviews eye witnesses, material witnesses and families of the victims while he seeks the support of fellow experts to determine who committed these crimes, where and when they occurred and how and why this happened. Along the way, painting a dark, grim picture of our lawless oceans, Karsten encounters drug smuggling, people trafficking, illegal fishing, and piracy.

Karsten, who has more than 10 years of experience investigating crimes undercover and is an expert in profiling, interrogation, surveillance and field-intelligence gathering (to name a few), is prepared for a dogged marathon of an investigation. This is, without a doubt, his most dangerous case to date - one that's epic in scope and one that will dramatically challenge all of his skills as an investigator.

"How do I solve homicides with no bodies, no evidence and no forensics?" asks Karsten, who begins his investigation by deftly examining the footage. "The Youtube video is my Zapruder film. It's compressed and pixelated but full of potential clues, including faces of victims, witnesses, the sound of gunshots and the design of the vessel. Best of all, 27 seconds in, a ship passes the camera lens and reveals its identity."

From this jumping-off point, Karsten methodically crisscrosses the Indian and Pacific Oceans to reveal stunning developments that will have viewers question whether the cell-phone footage could be just a small piece of a massive and shocking international puzzle.

LAWLESS OCEANS is produced for National Geographic by WALL TO WALL Media Ltd. For WALL TO WALL Media, Jeremy Dear, Chris Lent and Tim Lambert are executive producers. For National Geographic, Robert Palumbo is executive producer; Matt Renner is vice president, production; and Tim Pastore is president, original programming and production.

Image courtesy of Nat Geo