Sam Mullins.

Image Credit: Sam Mullins

It's a story of deception, murder and stolen identities which crosses from Canada to the UK and starts when a body is found in the sea off the South-West coast of England.

The story about Canada's most wanted man is written and narrated by Vernon-born writer Sam Mullins and is currently the number one podcast in Canada on the Apple chart.

Uncover: Sea of Lies tells the intriguing story of an elaborate con man and is Mullins' third podcast after he shot to fame – in the world of podcasts – with Chameleon: Wild Boys, the untold story of Vernon's bush boys.

Following Wild Boys success, instead of pitching ideas to others, production teams are now coming to him.

And the Vernon-born, Toronto-based writer, got a call from the CBC.

"I'd never heard anything like this... at the end of the first call I was... 100% on board," Mullins told iNFOnews.ca.

The story begins in the UK and moves over to Canada.

So while a production team was putting the podcast together in the UK they still needed a writer and host, and someone in Canada.

Mullins got the job.

"Once I came on board, I was able to work with my UK producer and we would do the interview prep together and then she would go and interview all these police officers and victims over there. While I was driving around southwestern Ontario trying to find people willing to talk to me about this Canadian con man," Mullins said.

The podcast tells the story of one of the country's most prolific scam artists, who stole identities and millions of dollars before he was finally caught.

Without giving too much away, plenty of UK police officers featured in the podcast.

"The UK police love talking about this case because this was sort of their Super Bowl win," Mullins said. "This was the biggest case any of those dudes ever worked so, they love talking about it."

Unfortunately, Mullins didn't have quite the same success in Canada.

"Canadian police are different," he said. "When you do a story in the States or in the UK, I just find that they're much more willing to talk."

Even retired Canadian police officers said they had to go through official police media channels.

That said, he did talk to officers involved and a number of victims.

While the story of the international con man has never been put in a podcast, it did receive wide media attention in the UK at the time.

Because of this, many involved in the story question what Mullins and his crew can say about it that hasn't been said before. It makes getting an interview with those involved more difficult.

"Then you let 20 years of rumination happen and then you revisit something, so many times when people are on the microphone, you can see them processing things and hear them processing things in new ways with the benefit of time," Mullins said. "That can be really interesting."

Mullins said people often find it therapeutic when they do speak and credits many of the interviews to his UK producer Alex Gatenby.

"She is so exceptional at creating a safe space and circling back to the right things and structuring her interview in the right way," he said.

Sea of Lies is put together in seven, 50-minute podcasts totalling around five hours, which was a year's worth of work for Mullins.

There were a lot of drafts and a lot of red ink.

"Making these series is such a delicate dance because you are trying to make something thrilling that honours the people that trusted you by telling you their story. And you also have to write something that withstands an independent fact checker," Mullins jokes.

So what does Mullins hope people get out of it?

"I just hope that I've made something that really grips people and makes people... root for the good guys," he said.

Mullins also said while the police often get a bad rap in true crime stories this isn't one of those.

"It was just really nice to see a story where there is excellent police work happening," he said. "These guys were incredible."

For more information and to listen to Sea of Lies go here.

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