Marcella Boehler is an editor with The Outlaw Ocean Project. This is the second of a six-part series with accompanying podcasts that will run every week in Globe Opinion. The podcasts follow Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Ian Urbina and his team as as they expose the dark undercurrents of the largely lawless open seas.
On October 29, 2023, a 45-year-old American named Joshua Farinella flew into the city of Amalapuram near India’s eastern coast to start his new job as the general manager at a shrimp-processing plant owned by a company called Choice Canning. Farinella, who is soft spoken with a shaved head, neatly trimmed beard, and full sleeve of tattoos, was excited about the prospect of living abroad for the first time.
True, this would be a high-pressure job, and he would miss Christa, his wife, who remained in their Pennsylvania home. But he had negotiated a salary of $300,000 a year, more than double what he’d earned at another seafood company in the United States. He joked that he was now the best-paid shrimp worker who did not own his own company. He figured that if he could stick it out for two or three years he would be set up for life: He looked forward to upgrading his camper van, paying off his car loan, and setting aside some money for his stepdaughter’s university education.
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