This week, award-winning journalist Mariana van Zeller was interviewed by South African investigative journalist Devi Sankaree Govender about her latest season of the Nat Geo series Trafficked, which screens on DSTV from 23 May 2024. This fourth part of the popular, if harrowing, series, is titled Trafficked: Underworlds, and investigates the trade in body parts, hired assassins, sextortion and the smuggling of people across the U.S.-Mexico border.
These emerging new underworlds are explored through Van Zeller’s web of contacts, who help her and her film crew embed in seriously dangerous situations, in search of answers. Select journalists were invited to attend the interview as Van Zeller spoke about her experiences – including an eye-opening episode tracking assassins-for-hire in South Africa.
KAREN RUTTER
Mariana van Zeller, host of the Nat Geo Trafficked series, has interviewed some pretty hardcore characters in her role as host of the programme. The series delves into the underground economy, where everything from body parts to brides is part of an illegal global trading process. But, she insists, “nobody is born wanting to be a criminal. It’s the system that is broken, not the people. Inequality and lack of opportunity leads people into crime.”
It is partly this which drives her, and her team, to shed light on some of the most dangerous operations on the planet.
She refers to a young man named “Jojo”, a self-confessed assassin from South Africa, who claims to have killed “about 30 people for money”. Despite finishing school and going to college, he couldn’t find conventional work, and now makes his living as a gun for hire, based in Kwa-Zulu Natal. His story forms part of the episode titled Assassins, which uncovers a chilling trail of corruption and ineptitude in South Africa where the police are complicit in crime (selling uniforms and guns to criminals, according to another informant) and lives are cheap (well, depending on who you are. A hit could cost R100 000, depending on the target).
Fascinating, chilling commentary
It’s her ability to empathise with her informants that often gets Van Zeller’s “guests” to spill the most incredible secrets. She says that people often really want to share their side of a story. “Sometimes ego is involved, and people want to boast about their work. They may also be aware of police corruption, and know nothing will happen to them. And then there is a need to feel understood. Especially if they know they are vilified, they want to explain their side,” she says.
And it makes for fascinating, if chilling, commentary. “The legal economy is constantly analysed – yet almost half of the world’s economy is illegal. We need to know more about it,” says Van Zeller
While each episode rolls out at a brisk pace, it takes weeks and often months to set up. “Our unsung heroes are the local journalists and sources, who find the people we want to talk to,” says Zeller. “It all takes meticulous planning. But there’s also a saying: ‘Plans are really nice until you get punched in the face.’ Unexpected moments happen all the time – and we embrace them, it’s part of the story.”
That said, there are definitely moments that are more harrowing then others. Most recently, the team got stuck in Niger due to a military coup. And while interviewing (another) assassin in Los Angeles, the man indicated that “if this is a setup and you are police, you are going to be killed.” Van Zeller said she was terrified a police car would happen to drive by, and they would be seen to be complicit.
Sense of mutual trust
But often, there is a sense of mutual trust in a situation. “We would never, ever inform on our sources. Which is why I respect a healthy separation between government/law and press. Our job as journalists is to report, to shed a light, not to get particular people arrested. We go to great lengths to protect our sources,” says Van Zeller.
Some people want proof that she is a journalist, and not an undercover cop. This is also one of the reasons her and her small team of around six don’t use security when filming. “We want people to trust us. If we show up with guy who is obviously security, then why should they trust us?” she asks.
Van Zeller admits to being passionate about her job. “Ever since I was young, growing up in Portugal, I watched the anchors on TV, and I thought they were the most intelligent, smartest people on the planet,” she smiles.
Curious and passionate about work
She went to Columbia University in the USA to study journalism – and was thrown into the deep end when 9/11 happened in New York two weeks later. The Portuguese news outlet Van Zeller had worked for as an intern wanted on-the-spot coverage, and she was chosen. “I remember wanting to understand why things like this happen,” she says.
After working as a journalist in many countries including the Middle East and Latin America, she was approached by Nat Geo in 2018, and the Trafficked series was born.
“I pinch myself every day that I can do the job that I love! I am curious, and I am passionate, and I think that is part of what drives me to do this work,” she says.
However, Van Zeller does admit to being affected by some of the things she has experienced. “We see some pretty heavy things – and this is where the team becomes very important. We talk, in a therapeutic way about what we have seen. Debriefing with the crew is important – we bond.”
And when she’s not interviewing teenage killers or body part smugglers, she knows how to relax.
“I run, I listen to podcasts, I drink wine, and I spend time with my family and friends. That’s what keeps me sane and grounded,” says Van Zeller.
Trafficked: Underworlds will be released on Nat Geo DSTV, Channel 181, on 23 May 2024. The first three seasons of Trafficked can currently be watched on Disney+.
WS