Under The Radar

Journalist Mariana van Zeller takes us inside eight of the world’s deadliest criminal networks in her new series, Trafficked With Mariana Van Zeller on National Geographic (*181).

- Genevieve Terblanche

Where are there billion-dollar businesses run by people whose faces we never see? They aren’t even traded on the stock market. These are the shadow economies created by illegal activities like drug and gun running, sex trafficking, poaching, scamming, counterfeiting and the like.

Now Portuguese investigative journalist Mariana van Zeller (2013 doccie El Chapo: CEO Of Crime) is taking us inside these deadly black-market organisations to speak to people who make a living in the underworld in the eight-episode National Geographic (DStv 181) series, Thursdays on National Geographic (*181) at 21:00.

For some of her subjects, it was a way of flexing their power. Mariana reveals, “In Sinaloa (Mexico) alone, there are several different sorts of sectors or groups that belong to the Sinaloa Cartel. So a lot of times, they see this opportunity of being able to talk to National Geographic, a brand that is known all around the world, as a way to show force and show how they are the most powerful. In a lot of cases, that’s why they agree to speak to us.” We spoke to Mariana about what it took to make contact (which is something she shows viewers in detail in each episode), what it was like to be stood up by a contact, and what she’s learnt about these dark and deadly worlds…

8 EPISODES, 8 QUESTIONS

1 How do you research something that is, by its nature, so deeply secretive?