Interview: Fearless Mariana van Zeller Reveals the Dangers She Put Herself in for Season 4 of Nat Geo’s Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller”

“Fearless” is a word I would use to describe Mariana van Zeller, whose investigative National Geographic series, Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller, returns for its fourth season on January 17th. This season, Mariana continues to travel the world, visiting seedy underbellies to expose crime. From smuggled goods like counterfeit drugs to assassins for hire, Mariana gets in the thick of the action to better understand how these black markets work and why they exist. Ahead of the upcoming season, I had the honor of speaking with Mariana about the danger she gets into each time she chooses a topic to explore for the series.

Alex: Congratulations on season four of Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller. I'm always curious about how you select the topics that you cover. How were these 10 episodes chosen?

Mariana van Zeller: In this one, we looked at the 10 hardest issues we could possibly try to report on, and we went for them. I mean, all the way to getting stuck in a military coup in Africa. People think about black markets as a finite resource, but you'd be shocked and surprised at the long list of stories I still want to tell. Black markets are all around us. Half of the world's economy is these black and gray markets, so they're not going to go away anytime soon. It's just about which markets we are able to get access to, which markets are out there that are relevant, that people will want to watch, and whether we can come back alive.

Alex: Speaking of that, you do seem to put yourself in danger quite a bit. I often think of the threat increasing the further away from home you get, but in an episode about hitmen, you interview someone who lives in Los Angeles. Did that one feel too close to home?

Mariana van Zeller: Yeah, that particular interview was a really nerve-wracking one. We started looking at doing a story about assassins. It's a subject matter that's always fascinated me. Obviously, it’s not an easy one because these are people that are paid to kill. They're also paid to stay quiet and silent. The idea that you're interviewing a person whose job it is to kill people is nerve-wracking to begin with. I reached out to all my underworld contacts and got somebody, one of my connections right here in Los Angeles, who told us that he thought he had somebody who'd be willing to talk to us. A lot of times, people want to talk to us because they want to boast about what they do because they don't think anything bad can happen to them if they do talk to us. There's a certain level of confidence and trust also because people want to be understood and they want to be able to hide behind a mask and distorted voice to tell their stories. I think it was a combination of these factors that led this person to say yes and to agree to meet us, but right off the bat, one of the first things he did was take out his gun, and he showed it to me, and said, “If this is a setup you guys are all killed, you guys are all going to be dead.” I told him, “Sorry, this is not a setup, again, we're journalists.” And he was like, “Okay.” I told him we're going to hide your face and your voice, and he was like you better do it and he was uncomfortable throughout it. In fact, the interview only lasted about 15-20 minutes. He kept on threatening us, and at one point, we decided that it just didn't feel safe. He was also rushing on the interview, and we ended it there. But that then took us on a long journey of trying to figure out what else was out there and what is this world of assassins all about

Alex: Since you’re in your fourth season, does that make it a little bit easier to get a weary talker to open up to you? I mean, you can show them past episodes of the show to ease concerns about being set up and showcase the show’s format.

Mariana van Zeller: We actually get a lot of people reaching out to us. You'd be shocked at how many people send us photos and videos of their black market goods because they want to be on television or share their stories. But not all those stories are of Interest or related to episodes that we're looking at. I think it’s easier for people sometimes to trust us, but that doesn't make our jobs easier, in a way, because oftentimes the black markets we're looking at are very hidden and different. We've done the drug stories, and there's still plenty of drugs out there to do, but we've done the gun story, so it's about searching for other things that are out there that people sometimes don't even realize there's a black market around them.

Alex: One of the things I love about the show is that you really get into the reasons behind why many of these black markets exist. A great example is “Black Market Meds” (airing February 7th), where you visit Washington D.C. to talk with a politician about issues with drug prices that are fueling these markets. I’d love to hear more about how you hold your journalistic integrity in these situations. In that same episode, you interview a doctor who is helping to make fake drugs that won’t cure anybody’s ailments, and he’s lying to you about how he’s not hurting anybody by doing this.

Mariana van Zeller: I never shy away from asking the hard questions, and I think I have a good sense of when people are lying to me or not. We make it part of the show. When we're interviewing people and we have a sense that maybe they're not telling us the whole truth, that becomes part of the show. I talk, oftentimes on camera, too, about not being sure if he was telling me the truth. But sometimes, in these cases, it's very difficult to verify, as long as we're not portraying it as the truth. But in that case, here is a guy who's a doctor. He's in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Mexico City, that's where he has his office, that's where he operates, and he's also a chemist. He understands how to make these medications, and you don't need much. It's not that difficult, from what he showed us. In that case, he was making fake antibiotics, and he's saying at least I'm not harming people, I'm not putting anything bad in there, poisonous or toxic, that can kill people. And my question to him is, yes, but you're also leading people to believe that they're taking medication that can protect them and save them, cure them, and in fact, they're not. In some cases, that can lead to death and illness. And he answered the way he answered. But I think there is no incentive for them to lie to us, at the end of the day. It takes so long to convince people to talk to us that when they sit down with us, they're ready to tell us at least part of the truth.

Alex: It’s clear that each of these stories takes a lot of time and effort to bring to the screen. Do you get to work on one episode at a time, or are you balancing multiple at once? How many are you usually working on at one time?

Mariana van Zeller: We do 10 episodes a year, and each episode takes about four or five months from the very start until they finish editing. I'm involved in every single part of the production. The pre-production, the production, the traveling, the filming, every part of it, along with my incredible team. So I'm always sort of juggling a hundred balls at the same time, but it's not tiring. I don't complain at all because it is what I love to do.

Alex: Speaking of what you love to do, when you were pursuing a career in journalism, did you have your sights set on working for a prestigious brand like National Geographic? Is this project a dream destination?

Mariana van Zeller: I have emails that I sent to people 10 years before saying that my dream job is to have a show about the underworld because it's what I've been doing forever, and it's what I've always wanted to do, and at a place as prestigious, as well known, as well regarded, as trusted as National Geographic. And now here I am in 2024 with my fourth season of Trafficked doing my dream job. They're believers in journalism and the kind of Journalism that I do, which is not easy. It's investigative journalism. It's dangerous, it's risky, and they truly believe that it’s all about understanding our world. These black markets are half of our world's economy, and they really trust and believe us, and give us what we need to be able to investigate these worlds, and it's amazing.

Alex: I think that's the perfect note to end on. Congratulations again on the fourth season of Trafficked. I hope we get many more, and I'm looking forward to seeing the rest of this season.

Season 4 of Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller premieres Wednesday, January 17th, at 9/8c on National Geographic. New episodes will continue to air on that same night and time through March 13th, and episodes stream the day after they air on Hulu.

Here is the planned schedule for Season 4: