Trafficked: Underworlds with Mariana van Zeller

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 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 that 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.

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, get a cremation, or a traditional burial, can become the victim of human remains trafficking.

Americans spend more per capita on prescription drugs than anywhere else in the world. That's why nearly 20 million US 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.

Mariana heads to the Congo to investigate the illegal trade in wild apes that have them on the brink of extinction. She'll follow the supply chain from the poachers to the middlemen 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.

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 US. While following a 2,000-mile trail from Tapachula to the US 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.

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.

Americans love to gamble. The legal market made $53 billion dollars 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.

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?

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.