Inside global black markets: Emmy-winning investigative journalist Mariana van Zeller

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0:42No ID, prescription or age requirement. It's the number one OBGYN recommended brand of emergency contraception and it won't impact your future fertility. That's freedom to be. Use as directed. Most people don't know this, but an estimated 30 to 35 percent of the global economy are black and gray markets. And yet we know so very little about them. Today, I'm here with Mariana Van Zeller, one of the world's top investigative journalists who specializes in uncovering global black markets. Inside that pen is a slice of human brain. From online scam centers in Southeast Asia to drivers of the U.S. opioid crisis to cartels in Mexico.

1:21So, serious question, was that when you truly feared for your life? She's an Emmy and Peabody award-winning correspondent, best known as host and executive producer of Trafficked, the National Geographic series that recently earned a record-breaking number of Emmy nominations. There's a line in journalism that you should never cross, but you have to come back with chalk on your feet. She's also host of the new video podcast, The Hidden Third. In this conversation, we'll get into how these underground economies really work, the reporting that has shaped her career, and the dangers of tracking global smuggling.

1:55These are the most stereotyped, stigmatized people in our society. It's the people we consider the bad guys. What I hear a lot is that no one has ever wanted to sit down with them and listen to their stories and understand why they do what they do.

2:09Miranda, thanks so much for being here. Thank you so much for having me. So just to start off, for those who don't know, what is the hidden third exactly? Yeah, it's a good question. I think, like you said, most people don't know this, but an estimated 30 to 35 percent of the global economy are black and gray markets. It's what economists call the hidden third. And yet we know so very little about them, whether we're talking about immigration or scams or guns or, you know, the opiate crisis, drugs. These are all issues that have a huge impact in every single one of us on a daily basis. And yet we know very little about these industries that have become, in many cases, massive industries.

2:50We have news organizations devoted to analyzing every up and down of the global economy, of the legal economy. But very little is known about the illegal economy. And that's what essentially I've spent the last 20 years of my life reporting on. Such a good point. And obviously, so much of this is sparked by sheer curiosity. For you, Mariana, growing up in Portugal, where did that spark of curiosity really come from? And whereabouts in Portugal, by the way, did you grow up? Yeah, so I grew up in a small town outside of Lisbon called Qashqai, sort of a beach town. And I think it all started, I was around 12 years old when I decided I wanted to be a journalist.

3:27So very, very young. But it started because it was mandatory in my household. Growing up, we had to watch the nightly news. We could watch the Brazilian soap operas, which were very, very popular in my house, all over Portugal, but only after watching the nightly news. And I remember seeing these Portuguese anchors talking about what was happening all around the world with so much knowledge and so much sort of grasp of information. And I just thought these were the most incredibly smart people on earth. And I realized I wanted to be like them. I had no idea they were reading from a teleprompter, so they weren't actually memorizing all the information like I thought they would.

4:03But that's when I decided I wanted to be a journalist. So I went to college, to school in Portugal, and I studied international relations. And then once I graduated that, I applied for an internship at a news station in Portugal, a TV, Portugal's largest TV news station at the time. and while working there I knew that the sort of reporting and journalism that I wanted to do was more global and wanted the opportunity to travel around the world. I still thought I was going to be an international correspondent perhaps or international producer for a large organization but I knew that Portugal was a small country and wouldn't be I wouldn't have that opportunity there so I started applying for Columbia's journalism school and I applied the first year and I didn't get in.

4:49And then I applied the second year, I was put on a wait list. And I was super excited. But I didn't get in again. And then it wasn't until the third year, I flew to New York, and I knocked on the dean's door, and I introduced myself. And that year, I was accepted. So it's sort of taught me my first big lesson in journalism, which is persistence, right? You never you never give up. I mean, talk about persistence and chutzpah, right? I mean, like, were you nervous? Did you hesitate in making that ask? Or how did that go for you? 100%. So I remember Columbia University actually discouraged international students from coming to visit because they don't want to give.

5:23There's thousands of people that apply every year and only a few get in. And so they don't want people to go all the way to, you know, New York and Columbia and then, you know, get rejected from the university. But I thought I don't have anything to lose. So I flew to New York with a friend of mine. We had another friend who lived there. So we were able to stay at her house. And I remember going up until the front door of the journalism school and being so nervous and thinking, maybe I shouldn't do this. This is ridiculous. Why would he even see me? Like, this is a terrible idea. But then thinking, really, I have nothing to lose.

5:58You know, I've come all the way here, so I might as well do it. And I was very lucky because at the time, he was the Dean of Academic Studies, Dean David Claytel, incredible man, has since passed away, unfortunately but um I knocked on his door and he sat me down we spoke for about an hour he asked me all sorts of questions about why I wanted to be a journalist and then yeah I remember I was in the newsroom in Portugal uh sort of unhappy doing a story I think I was working at a travel channel a show at the time which I hated and it got me traveling which was fun but I just it wasn't what I wanted to do wasn't it yeah and uh and then receiving an email saying that I'd been accepted and I started jumping up and down and crying and called my parents and they started crying.

6:42And I knew it was the beginning of something of a new life for me. Little did you know that you're going to go on to do that many, many times again, all around the world, banging down doors, right? Exactly. So this was back, I think I read it was 2001. And just a month in to the program at Columbia, you said that you found yourself reporting back to Europe on the events of 9-11. That's right. So I've heard that that experience really kind of set the tone for the type of reporting that you'd like to do. What do you mean by that? Yeah, 100%. I was at home in the morning. I mean, it was around 9 a.m.

7:12I had been studying the night before until late, so I was still sleeping when it happened. And I started getting phone calls on both my landline and my cell phone. And eventually I picked up the landline, and it was the TV channel that I'd worked for in Portugal telling me that, turn on your TV. You know, the World Trade Center is under attack, and I couldn't believe it. and they said you you are the only Portuguese journalist that we know in Manhattan that at the time Manhattan was closed off you couldn't get in or out and we need somebody to go to Midtown to the rooftop of this building and start reporting live on the events um on these events and I I had my mom on the other line who called me and was crying and begging me not to leave the house we had no idea what was happening in New York at that day um I mean it was a very scary and yeah dangerous place to be in.

8:07And yeah, my mom was all the way in Portugal and had no control and was just begging me, please don't leave the house. And, uh, but I, but I did. And I realized that this was an important moment. Um, you know, if I wanted to be a journalist, this is the kind of story that you want to be on the ground for. And so I went up to the rooftop of this building in Midtown and I was surrounded by the biggest, uh, all my journalism heroes and people that I'd watched on television growing up, you know, they were doing their jobs, they were reporting live for their own countries. I was shaking, I was so, so nervous.

8:41I had like terrible clothing on, I had like a nylon shirt that looked horrible, I had way too much makeup, I looked awful. But I was 24 years old. And, and I ended up doing the live reporting. And I remember being very, very excited with the fact that, okay, I can do this, right now. And then walking down to the streets of Manhattan and seeing the first sort of signs of people looking for their loved ones. You had mothers holding photos of their kids and wives with photos of their husbands. And it was just such a traumatic event for everyone who was in New York that day. And for me, it changed the course of my life forever because I realized that, yes, I wanted to pursue journalism, but it wasn't the type, it wasn't journalism where I would just answer the questions as to how, when, and what.

9:34I really wanted to go after the why. And so I wanted to understand why things like this, why events like this happen, and also who, who was behind these attacks, and how can we understand what leads people to do this sort of attack. And so a year after graduating from Columbia University, I moved to Syria, The war in Iraq had just started. I wanted to sort of be close to the action. I wanted to learn Arabic. And that began sort of my reporting on black markets and the underground. It sounds like it was great preparation for what you were going to do next. And it really propelled you forward and gave you a sense of clarity, didn't it?

10:14Yeah, it was really incredible. It was, you know, being a freelance journalist, as you know, isn't easy. I had to figure out a way how to sustain myself because when I first got to Syria, you know, I was an inexperienced. Nobody was going to buy stories from me. So I used to sell carpets. I'd buy carpets in Syria. I'd ship them to my mother. She would have these tea parties and sell the carpets and then she would send me back the money. I would sort of buy the carpets for like$100,$150. She would sell them for like$300,$400. And with that money, I was able to sort of pay for my rent and my food in Syria.

10:50And then it was there that I first started hearing about jihadis, foreign jihadis, foreign fighters who were crossing from Syria into Iraq to fight against the Americans. And, you know, what they saw as the American invasion. And that was the first story that I ever did as a freelance journalist. And it was my entree into black markets. Some story. Yeah. And I had no idea about the carpets. That's actually a very charming detail of your backstory, I think. I love that fun fact. So fast forward, Mariana, you've now had a longstanding career, obviously, serving as a correspondent for various travel or documentary programs for outlets, including Vice and Fusion, obviously, Nachio.

11:29And as journalists, you know, we all seek to make an impact. But of course, with the realities of our industry, that's sadly not what everyone gets to do. How did you find your way into, you know, sticking with the investigative reporting and documentary space? And was it ever hard to stay committed to that space, to your point earlier, especially when other paths might have felt, you know, more commercially stable or straightforward? Yeah, I think it's still hard, even to this day, no matter how many awards you win, and no matter how well, you know, you do your work, I think it's still hard. I think there isn't a lot of people, you know, a lot of news organizations out there clamoring to have investigative journalism stories on their airwaves or radio waves or out there.

12:16It's just, it's expensive. It's risky, particularly the kind of reporting that I do. There's a belief that there's no real audience for that. I disagree. I think that Trafficked, we've done five seasons of the show on Nagio, has really proven that there is an audience out there. It was a very popular show. You know, I think we investigated some very important subject matters. So I think it's just about not giving up and keep going at it. Traffic has come to an end. We did five seasons. I'm very proud of the work we put together. I'm working on another show now that's sort of semi-related to black markets, but not in the scope that traffic does it.

12:57But I still haven't given up on black markets, and I'm still figuring out ways. I started my podcast that's called The Hidden Third, that is about these black markets in a way or another. It's a way that I can have sort of long, raw, intimate, very difficult conversations sometimes with people that inhabit these black markets. Because I truly believe that this is a part of the world, again, a third of the world, that has a huge impact on us and that we really don't know anything about. And so I'm going to keep doing what I think is important and what I love to do. It's not a sacrifice either. I love doing it.

13:33Yeah, absolutely. Well, more on that later, many follow ups to come. But, you know, just to that point, you've been reporting now on black and gray markets for more than 20 years. What was it that initially drew you to that space in particular? Because, you know, you were doing the conflict zone reporting. So obviously used to that gritty environment. But what drew you to, you know, the underbelly and kind of like the underground network side? Yeah. You know, I when I started, I didn't even realize that that's what I was doing. But the stories that I was always attracted to, whether it was in Syria with, you know, the foreign fighters or right after that, I did a story about these illegal gold mines in Brazil.

14:11And then after that, it was one on the death train that carries immigrants from Central America all the way to the north of Mexico who are trying to get it to the United States. So all these stories, if you combine them and the more and more of these stories I started telling, I realized that these are all black market stories. These are all a huge chunk of our world, of our economy, and they, again, have an impact on our world. This is the kind of story that I'm most attracted to, that I'm most interested and curious about. I think that as journalists, I say this often, but as journalists, if you tell people that there's a door and you cannot open that door and see what's behind it, that's exactly what you want to do, right?

14:53In general, as people, that's what we want to do, and particularly if you're a journalist. And so for me, it's that sort of wanting to see what's behind those closed doors and realizing that by shining a light, I can actually make a difference and an impact in these black markets. Probably because those stories are the most untold. Absolutely. Absolutely. And there's victims in all these black markets, you know, and many times it's voiceless victims, people that don't have a platform. So being able to give people that platform is fantastic. Again, it's a real privilege. So take us behind the scenes of Trafficked.

15:31I think a huge reason you've resonated so much is that you often show a lot of the process to your viewers, right? Whether it's on how hard it is to get access, if somebody flakes on you, when you're trying to still find context on the ground. What does it actually take to bring a single episode to air? from research to filming to legal and standards. Yeah. Oh, my God. It's forever. We do 10 episodes a year, which is a little insane because these are all mini films. Every single one of them takes. It's about like three to four months of pre-production. Most of that time is spending just trying to get access because we're getting access to fentanyl labs and cocaine labs in the jungles of Peru and Asian scam compounds and, you know, illegal street racing and fight clubs.

16:20And these are all places and worlds where people don't really want cameras inside. Right. So gaining that access is what takes a long time. And then once we were on the ground, it's we film for about two to three weeks on average per story. And then it's about three to four months after to put each story together, because it's not just about crafting and the editing of it. it's like you said it's the standards and practices it's the legal reviews we have dozens and dozens of legal reviews both by our own team at muck media muck media is the production company i own that also that makes traffic for net geo and by net geo's legal team so it's we have to make sure that everything we put out there is factual that it's fair and yeah and that we're telling a story that is contextualized as well so yeah it takes forever and all these 10 stories that we're doing a year they're sort of being done at the same time so while one I'm might be out in the field filming one but at the same time my team and I I'm also watching the cuts of the stories that are coming in or I'm you know helping plan the next story that we're going out into the field to film so it's all happening all at once.

17:30Ten episodes a year is a lot especially when you consider the amount of time that goes into each one I had no idea you film for like two three weeks at a time in each country. It's crazy. I mean it's all over and you're going obviously on the ground in each one. Obviously also like Nat Geo is backed by Disney, right? So you're like going to be lawyered up to the hilt. So I can only imagine how many like nights you wanted to pull out your hair going through the process. Yes, you have no idea. You have no idea. It is, I have to say, I'm happy we have lawyers and there's, you know, a legal team to protect us.

17:59But at the same time, it is the most frustrating part of the job. Sure. Has there ever been a time, I'm sure there are many actually, but has there ever been a specific moment that like you know they kind of advise you not to do something and you kind of just really pushed and went for it anyway I'm sure that's yeah I think we have a little bit of a logo a thing we a motto sorry that we say in our on our team um that you know just do it and ask for forgiveness later right uh I mean you we go to these places we spend months and months trying to get access. And, and yeah, there have been situations where Nagio has asked us, oh, maybe it's better not to do this.

18:40And we still, we go and do it because at the end of the day, none of us wants to get hurt, right? I mean, we're not going out there because we want to die. None, and I don't want anyone on my team to get hurt. No story is worth the life, obviously, but we are the ones on the ground and we are the ones who have the best judgment to understand what's, what's safe to do and what's not. And I think a journalism teacher once told me, and I love this so much, which one of my favorite lines in journalism that I tell journalism students all the time, which is there's a line in journalism that you should never cross, right?

19:16But you have to make sure you come back with chalk on your feet, right? So you have to make sure that you go as close as possible to that, to crossing that line without crossing it. And And the reporting that I do has always been about that, right? Going, really taking it as far as I can while keeping my team and myself safe, but as close as we can get to reality. I think that's really defined your style of reporting. So good, so good, so good. New summer arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack stores now. Get ready to save big with up to 60 % off brands like Rag & Bone, Levi's, Adidas, and Free People.

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20:30That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need a hiring hero? This is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. I recently watched your episode on the sale of brides in Vietnam where you were followed by local minders relentlessly. as someone who comes from Asia, you know, that's kind of not really unfamiliar to many reporters there, right? There are certainly limits on press freedom. I was curious if there's anywhere that's, you know, ever been completely off limits to you or where you've really felt you've hit hard walls as a journalist. Oh, yeah. China. I mean, so much of the reporting I've done in the past, they're Chinese ties.

21:07I mean, talk about fentanyl. I've reported on the opiate crisis for 15 years now. I've done dozens of stories on fentanyl and it would make total sense just like I've spent so much time in Mexico. The precursor chemicals for fentanyl that are being made, the fentanyl that's being made in Mexico comes from China. A lot of the fentanyl being consumed and used and abused in the United States comes from China. And so for me, it would make absolute sense to be able to go to China and report on this. And yet you know very well, like I do, that that's not something that's possible for us journalists to report freely in China.

21:43And in the bride trafficking story, it was super interesting. We were in Vietnam. We had, like you said, a government minder and law enforcement following us. They were, you know, checking every single question we asked. They would give us notes after because I would always ask the questions they didn't want us to ask. And then we found out that they were bugging our phones and our van and possibly even our hotel rooms. and so it got very sort of strange and kind of dangerous also to be reporting there but we did and we got around and we figured out ways to report on on bride trafficking it's really underreported issue it's horrible we're talking about girls being trafficked and snatched from their families and taken into brothels into family homes in china but we knew that we wanted part of the reporting because all of these victims are ending up in china or many of them are we knew we wanted to do some reporting in China too.

22:39So what we did was we teamed up with a group of undercover Chinese journalists who are really the heroes of this story and who went across the border into China and reported from there using undercover cameras. And we use that as part of our investigation, which is something we would have never been able to do. Yeah. So often there's these unsung heroes, right? And I'm so glad you lift the veil on that. The fact that, you know, There are so many amazing local contacts or journalists that you guys work with that really help open those doors. Absolutely. I mean, a show like Trafficked, and I believe like international investigative journalism wouldn't be possible without the unsung heroes.

23:20Like you said, the fixers, the producers, the local journalists who really have so much more to lose and very little to gain at times, you know, particularly if they're doing undercover work. Their names are not going to be, you know, in bylines. They're not going to be in awards nights winning awards on stage because many times they're nameless and they have to remain so in order to be able to keep doing their work. And they're the ones that have the most to risk because we have the privilege of coming back to our homes and they're the ones that are staying behind. And if anything goes wrong and if the government finds out that what they've done, you know, or cartel.

23:56I mean, that's not just about governments. It's about the cartel, anyone who's reporting out there on crime in general. And where there's lack of press freedom, it's, yeah, they have the most to lose and the least amount to gain. So I really am constantly in awe of the people that I work with in these countries. Do you still have a dream story or white whale that you haven't been in a milk crack yet? You obviously talk about China. Like, is there a specific story that you really want to go there for or in general? Yeah, more countries. I've always wanted to go to Iran. we've been trying to figure out a way to do the Iran story for traffic for a long time but it's really hard to get visas and we've gone through that process um so that hasn't worked yet and then I've always wanted to go there was a story that I really wanted to tell for a long time it's about dino bones dinosaur bones uh which exist a lot in the Gobi desert in Mongolia and um Nat Geo just never uh was never interested in doing that story so I was gonna say that sounds very Nat Geo, dino bones in Mongolia.

24:58Yeah, there's a motto at Nat Geo, which is bones and stones, stories that people aren't interested in. That's so funny. I didn't know that. Okay, well, looking back, what is the hardest story you've ever had to do? I'm sure you're asked this all the time. Firstly, in terms of restrictions, and second, just personally as a human being. Yeah, restrictions, I would say Vietnam was very, very hard. We already work in sort of a high risk environment, right? Myself and my team, we already, you know, when we're meeting with cartel and assassins and traffickers, it's already hard enough as is. And then you add to that the fact that you have the government on top of you, listening and spying on you the whole time, really made it hard.

25:45And obviously, we depend on these sources that operate in these black markets to talk to us. And no one wanted to talk to us because they knew they were being watched too. And in fact, the police showed up at the homes of some of the people that I'd agreed to talk to was and threatened them. So they ended up not showing up. And then in terms of sort of the emotional side of it all, for me, was really Niger was getting stuck. We were doing Niger doing a story about illegal gold mining and how it's funding these large terrorist organizations. And it's in an area where there's Boko Haram and Al Qaeda and ISIS.

26:22They're all operating out of this region, the southern Sahel. And we were there doing the story, and it was going very well. And we spent a night in the desert camping out and filming inside these very sort of deep mines. And it was amazing. I was on cloud nine because for years I've been trying to convince Nat Geo that this was a safe story to tell and that it was important. And so we were there. We had a military escort service. We had like four cars, trucks with military guys with AK-47s, a military convoy with us, protecting us. It was the only way that NGEO allowed us to go. And quite frankly, it was the only way that the Nigerian government allowed us to go out there.