Trafficked: Underworlds with Mariana van Zeller

An investigation into rumors of gold mining funding terrorist groups in Niger gets turned on its head after a military coup puts the country on lockdown. While Mariana struggles to escape, she realizes that the gold trade is part of a much larger fight for influence in Africa that pits the U.S. against some of the world's most dangerous terror groups, not to mention Russia.

When Mariana learns that 66-year-old American Rodney Baldus is locked up in a prison in Mozambique for drug running, she begins an investigation unlike any she’s done before. She learns that international criminal syndicates are targeting elderly Americans with inheritance scams and conning them into becoming drug mules. But is it enough to prove Rodney’s innocence?

Americans love to gamble. The legal market made $53 billion in 2021. And yet that total is dwarfed by an illegal gambling underworld that rakes in an estimated one trillion dollars annually. Mariana goes inside this dangerous scene to try and understand its allure, its growth, and its dark side.

The first drug that Mariana was exposed to growing up in Portugal continues to be Europe’s favorite: hash. The booming popularity of this seemingly “soft drug” holds a dark secret. Mariana follows the trail of smugglers from the mountains of Morocco to their buyers in Europe — a world of shadowy dealers, lightning-fast smuggling boats and increasing violence.

As the debate over America’s broken immigration system continues to boil, Mariana heads to Mexico to investigate the billion-dollar business of people smuggling to the U.S. While following a 2,000-mile trail from Tapachula to the U.S. border, she’ll try to understand who’s making the money, how the cartels are involved, and why so little is being done to stop it.

Mariana heads to the Congo to investigate the illegal trade of wild apes, pushing them to the brink of extinction. She’ll follow the supply chain from the poachers to the brokers and ultimately to the buyers, many in the Middle East, who use these apes as pets and in sideshow attractions. She’ll also spend time with Congolese activists who are fighting to protect apes from extinction.

Americans spend more per capita on prescription drugs than anywhere else in the world. That’s why nearly 20 million U.S. citizens are turning to the black market for their meds—and why criminals are eager to cash in on the rising demand. In this episode, Mariana heads to Mexico and India to meet some of the underworld opportunists risking the lives of vulnerable patients.

Every year, the sale of human remains generates billions of dollars worldwide. Astonishingly, this thriving trade remains largely hidden from the public eye. With little oversight, abuses abound. During her investigation, Mariana learns how anyone—whether they’ve chosen to donate their body to science, cremation, or a traditional burial—can become the victim of human remains trafficking.

Mariana investigates a new blackmail scam called “sextortion,” in which compromising photos are used to extort victims. Heading to the Philippines to try and find the scammer who shamed one young American victim into taking his own life, she finds a scamming culture that is bigger, scarier and more complicated than she could have imagined.

Hitmen murder nearly 3,000 people a year around the globe, yet little is known about them. What drives a person to make a living out of killing? In this episode, Mariana journeys inside this violent trade, first tracking down an assassin in her hometown of Los Angeles before heading to a country where contract killings have become an almost daily occurrence: South Africa.

Mariana investigates the growing popularity of bare-knuckle fighting. On a journey that will take her from the bare-knuckle mecca of Thailand to underground fights throughout the U.S., Mariana explores the allure of these violent, bloody bouts and how they're feeding a larger push to bring bare-knuckle fighting to the mainstream.

Cryptocurrencies have gone mainstream and minted billionaires around the globe, but this get-rich-quick fever paired with a lack of government oversight and regulation has created the perfect opportunity for scammers. In this episode, Mariana embeds with a crew of crypto "rug pull" scammers, who show her how they make millions of dollars in mere weeks.

Violent crime is soaring in Los Angeles to levels not seen in 30 years. To try and understand the realities and the rivalries fueling this gruesome trend, Mariana finds her way inside two of America's most notorious street gangs - the Bloods and the Crips. Surprisingly, her journey will lead her from some of the roughest neighborhoods of LA to the tiny Central American country of Belize.

Mariana embarks on a 3,000-mile journey from Africa to the Middle East to uncover the ways in which black market oil is fueling terrorist groups around the globe. Her investigation discovers how this "black gold" is stolen, smuggled and finding its way into the hands of America's most dangerous enemies.

Cyber-crimes like credit card scams, identity theft and ransomware are the fastest-growing black markets in the United States, making data a more valuable commodity than gold, guns and drugs. Mariana is on a mission to understand how our personal and financial information is stolen, sold, and distributed by a shadowy network of hackers and thieves, exposing a network of global proportions.

Ukraine was the epicenter of the billion-dollar global surrogacy business, until its war with Russia upended the controversial industry. Now, with the demand for surrogacy still surging, other countries are stepping in to fill the void. But that's not necessarily a good thing. In this episode, Mariana investigates how the dream of starting a family is fueling a babies-for-cash black market.

An alarming message from her son's middle school about MDMA sparks Mariana to investigate. She follows the supply chain of "the love drug" from the clubs of LA back to its booming epicenter in the Netherlands, where a mob-infested underworld has recently murdered a well-known journalist. Is it possible that MDMA consumption in the U.S. is helping to turn the Netherlands into a narco-state?

Ghost guns are quickly becoming the weapon of choice for criminal organizations nationwide. Built from kits that anyone can buy online without a background check, these ghost guns have no serial numbers, so they are untraceable. Mariana is on an urgent mission to expose how a largely unregulated industry has blossomed into a black market that funnels weapons into some very dangerous hands.

LSD is making a comeback because of the growing faith in its healing power. Underground therapy is booming, as the drug is used to treat abuse, depression and traumas of all kind. And yet, LSD remains 100% illegal, which is why the handful of chemists responsible for the world's supply remain a deeply-guarded secret. Mariana is on a mission to find one and to understand the secrets they keep.

Around the world, hundreds of people die every day for lack of available organs. That fact has fueled a shady underworld of transplant tourism, a trade that connects desperate patients from the world's wealthiest countries with desperate donors facing their own brutal realities. It's a global trade worth roughly 1.5 billion dollars. But how exactly does it work?