#1576 - Mariana van Zeller

Joe Rogan (0:16)

Did we do the podcast before? What year was it?

Wow, that's crazy. You were one of the first guests that I remember going, we gotta, I gotta talk to that lady. I go, we gotta find them, because the piece, the Oxycontin Express that you did, I'm like, that was a mind blower. That was when I first found out about what was going on in the pill mills down in Florida. I was like, that is fucking insane.

And that was like in the beginning of the podcast, the early days.

Mariana van Zeller (0:47)

It was, yeah. You reached out to me on Twitter and I was super excited.

Joe Rogan (0:50)

Is that what it was?

Mariana van Zeller (0:50)

It's like, do you want to come on the show? I was like, cuck yeah.

Joe Rogan (0:53)

Yeah, well, I love your new show. First of all, tell people what it is, what it's called and how they.

Mariana van Zeller (0:59)

For sure. It's called Trafficked. It's on Wednesdays, 9 p.m. on National Geographic. And in every episode, we go on a journey, a wild journey into black markets around the world.

Joe Rogan (1:09)

You do real boots on the ground, investigative journals. I mean, you are a fucking gangster woman.

The shit that you did in Peru and in Columbia, I was watching that episode on cocaine. My hands were sweating watching you do this. It's like you were, you went to the places where they're growing it, to the places where they make it.

Mariana van Zeller (1:34)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (1:35)

That was, you marched with the people that carry it through the route when they're carrying it in their backpacks.

Mariana van Zeller (1:41)

Yeah.

Joe Rogan (1:41)

I was like, oh my God, like you're risking your life, like genuinely risking your life.

Mariana van Zeller (1:46)

I don't like to see it that way. You know, no story is worth a life. So I hate, you know, we minimize the risk, but you know, there's, these are important stories to tell. These black markets are happening all around us.

They're super widespread. I think we have this idea that they're happening in sort of faraway lands and deep and secret locations, but they're not. And they have a real impact on our lives.

So there is a reason why we do the kind of reporting. And you're right, you know, boots on the ground, old school journalism, I think, is more important now than ever. And we are seeing less of it nowadays.

Joe Rogan (2:20)

It's so hard to do. I mean, to find someone willing to do what you did for that cocaine episode, I watched it last night. I was, I was sweating. I was like nervous. I was riveted.

It's such a, it's such a dangerous, but yet it's so much more illuminating than any other kind of journalism. You could say, oh, this is happening in Columbia. Oh, this is happening in Peru. And I'll just sit at home going, oh, I guess that's happening in Columbia.

But to see you, who I know, there, going there, and to see all the stuff that you had to go through to meet with these people and to gain their trust.

Mariana van Zeller (3:00)

Yeah, I would say also, I would add to that, that, you know, we did Mexico with fentanyl. We did guns here in the US going to Mexico. We did tigers in Asia and all these different scams in Jamaica and Israel. And I think a big important reason or goal for us with this show, and for me in particular, because it's the way that I approach my job and my career as a journalist, is to not only be there to inform of what's happening, like you were saying, but also I think it's important for people to connect to people in these far away lands that at first glance, we have nothing in common, right? These are the bad guys operating in far distant lands or maybe sometimes around us, but they're considered the bad people, the people that we have nothing in common with. But if you actually sit down with them and listen to their stories, and this is the big shocker of this show, and I think it rubs people the wrong way sometimes when you admit or when somebody tells you that, look, actually there is not a lot that differentiates you from the guy smuggling cocaine out of the Peru, the Vreme Valley in Peru.

You both have the same, are motivated by the same goals, which is happiness, an opportunity in life, a chance to reach your dreams.