Armed with National Geographic’s trademark inside access, Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller takes viewers on a journey inside the most dangerous black markets on the planet. Each investigation in the eight-part series embeds with Peabody and duPont Award-winning journalist Mariana van Zeller as she explores the complex and often violent inner workings of a smuggling network. While she dives deeper and deeper into these underworlds, Mariana reveals — with characteristic boldness and empathy — that the people operating these trafficking rings are often a lot more like us than we realize.
Trafficked with Mariana van Zellerpremieres22ndJanuary 2021at 10:00 PM UAE time and 9:00PM KSA with a two-episode premiere.Catch the premiere on Channel 302 on beIN, 369 on E-life, and 513 on OSN.
Trafficked offers viewers a mission-driven adventure to places rarely seen, providing an intimate peek behind the criminal curtain. Mariana spends time with major players from a host of underground economies — from tiger traffickers and international scammers to counterfeiters, gunrunners and fentanyl suppliers. Along the way, she also meets with law enforcement, ex-cons, fellow journalists and locals caught in the crossfire, all in an attempt to provide a 360-degree view of these poorly understood trafficking networks that contribute to the world’s multi-trillion-dollar shadow economy.
In a special two-hour episode, Mariana uncovers a lethal supply chain of American firearms being smuggled into the hands of drug cartels and fueling record levels of gun violence in Mexico. A journey filled with jaw-dropping access to gunrunners, mules, cartel bosses and assassins takes an even more terrifying turn when the son of the world’s most notorious drug lord, El Chapo Guzman, is arrested and the cartel that Mariana infiltrates decides to violently revolt.