When the Brillante Virtuoso, a massive, decrepit oil tanker, was attacked and badly damaged off the coast of Yemen in 2011, it seemed at first like just the latest in a spate of daring raids launched by Somali pirates in an increasingly lawless region. On the surface it was a shocking but straightforward crime. In reality, it was anything but.

Over the next decade, the scandal swirling around the ship would come to involve lies on an industrial scale, corruption, violent threats, Greek Shipowners, Yemeni power brokers, British lawyers, Filipino sailors, the murder of a British man that remains tragically unsolved, and his family's fight to unravel a web of organised crime.

Journalist Nick Wallis follows a story that goes all the way from the bleeding edge of the Arab Spring to the heart of the City of London.

Presenter: Nick Wallis
Producer: Robert Nicholson
Executive Producer: Will Yates
Sound Design: Leonie Thomas

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4 Show less