TRAFFICKED WITH MARIANA VAN ZELLER – Understanding the World of Contraband

It can be hard to understand why people enter the world of crime. If you work for a living, have a family, and make a positive contribution to society, to think that someone would market illegal products like fentanyl or ghost guns probably makes you cringe in disgust.

Criminologists, sociologists, and other academics make attempts to try to explain why people commit crime.

A National Geographic program that tries to give insight into the criminal world of trafficking illegal products and services is Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller. van Zeller, a Peabody Award winning journalist, goes into the field to show how illegal products are moved to their markets. In the process, her episodes show interviews with people who do the trafficking as well as interviews with law enforcement officers who try to intercept the contraband. van Zeller has covered drug trafficking, including cocaine, fentanyl, steroids, meth, marijuana, LSD, MDMA, as well as gun trafficking, counterfeiting, stolen cars, oil, and black-market body organs. She also has covered a variety of scams and scammers.

Her gutsy interviews have included teenagers moving drugs through the jungles of South America and local gang leaders who direct the production, movement, and marketing of drugs, cars, guns, and other contraband. The interviewed, often wearing a mask, reveal their humanity, and sometimes their inhumanity.

Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller gives a good insight into criminal organizations that produce and move illegal products for sale to people who want to buy them. You can find the program on the National Geographic Channel. If your cable provider does not carry the channel, you can see past episodes at:

 

 

National Geographic Channel:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/tv/shows/trafficked-with-mariana-van-zeller

 

Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mariana_van_Zeller