The Fifth Estate Season 51, Episode 8: Vanished

The Denial Machine

A data breach at B.C.'s Interior Health involving tens of thousands of employees' most sensitive information is for sale on the dark web; health-care workers' identities are repeatedly stolen while the agency denies the breach ever happened.

Funding the occupation

We're in the occupied West Bank on the trail of millions in Canadian tax deductible charitable donations. We reveal funds are supporting Israeli settlements deemed illegal under international law.

Dying to Recover.

Investigation into for-profit, privately owned residential substance use treatment facilities across Canada that, according to the investigation, operate with little government regulation or oversight, which critics say puts the lives of patients at risk.

Dawson Creek: Behind the Fear

We return to small-town Dawson Creek, B.C., where residents feel besieged by violence and murder. The RCMP failed to meet the deadline it set for answers, so we return to investigate yet more killings and reveal what is behind this crime wave.

45 min

The War on Safe Drugs

Canada’s opioid crisis has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of people, costing the health and justice systems billions. Many health providers say there were solutions that could have helped. We reveal how politics got in the way.

45 min

Smash & Grab

Smash-and-grabs are going viral on social media, but the culprits remain unknown; revealing how adults are playing the system by luring kids into violent crime with lifelong consequences.

Trapped on the Water

Lobster is a billion-dollar industry on the East Coast; who gets to trap and when is tearing communities apart; the federal government is being blamed for doing too little to help ease tensions.

Missing Black Boys

Reports of Black boys going missing have gone viral on social media; so have theories about what is happening to them; investigating who or what is luring these boys to remote communities.

Canada's Crypto Fugitive

An international search is underway for a Canadian who allegedly stole millions in crypto; we go from Hamilton, Ont., to Bosnia looking for a man with academic promise who may have turned criminal.

Last Breath

Designed to protect law enforcement and health-care workers, spit hoods have been linked to deaths; banned in parts of the world, in Canada, they're used countrywide, sometimes even on minors.

The Business of Bigotry

Online extremist content is influencing real-life violence. To creators, it's free speech; it's also big business. We go from Nashville to Calgary to eastern Europe on the trail of two Canadian companies that help creators turn hate into profit.

Critical threat

Threats to annex resource-rich Greenland shook Canadians. We reveal an American firm closely linked to Trump has secured a controlling stake in a massive rare earth mining project in Quebec.

The Dissident & The Spy

In November 2022, the body of a Chinese dissident was found near Gibsons, B.C. Was it a simple drowning or the result of a Chinese secret police operation? A former spy details how China uses covert means to threaten and intimidate.

45 min

The Ostrich Con

A small ostrich farm in rural B.C. became the centre of an international firestorm in the lead-up to a controversial cull after a bird flu outbreak. Was it necessary or government overreach? Locals say there's more to the story.

45 min

Corruption, Crime & Cricket Canada

Cricket Canada is under fire amid allegations of corruption and fixing, even at the World Cup. We investigate claims of mistreatment of players and infiltration and death threats by organized crime.

180 min