Mariana dives into an underground world of subterfuge, heists, counterfeiting, smuggling, and organized looting with Michel van Rijn, one of the world’s most prolific artifact smugglers. In a career full of legendary antics, he once sold a truckload of ancient Russian icons and used the proceeds to buy a private jet. But along the way, Michel made dangerous enemies in the billion-dollar illicit art market. With his back against the wall, he flipped sides, using his expertise to set up sting operations with the same international authorities who hunted him for decades. The BBC now calls him "The Indiana Jones of Chelsea"... although his former handler said he wasn’t above keeping the best mosaic for himself.

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Mariana breaks down how a major player made it big—and lost it all—in the dangerously unregulated, billion-dollar black market of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Tony Bosch’s Biogenesis of America was behind the largest PED scandal in American sports history, leading to the suspension of 14 professional baseball players, including Yankees' superstar Alex Rodriguez. How did he go from self-proclaimed “biochemist” of an anti-aging clinic to pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute testosterone?

The Trafficked TV series is available now on National Geographic, and new episodes air Wednesdays.

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Oxycontin has sparked the deadliest drug crisis in American history. Struggle Jennings, an outlaw country rapper — and the grandson of country music legend Waylon Jennings — once got busted for trying to purchase a big load of oxycontin in a WalMart parking lot in Memphis, Tennessee. Mariana and Jennings discuss the day he got busted, his life leading up to it, and the toll it took. 

The Trafficked TV series is available now on National Geographic, and new episodes air Wednesdays.

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The official companion podcast to National Geographic Channel’s new series premiering Dec 2, Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller brings us one step closer to understanding the lives of traffickers. Join investigative journalist Mariana van Zeller after each episode as she sits down with former black market operators to hear the story of their rise and fall, boom and bust. These intimate, honest and empathetic conversations pull back the curtain on the global underworld and the people who make their livelihoods within it. How did they get pulled to the dark side? How did they get caught? And what was it like to live the outlaw lifestyle? The Trafficked podcast is available wherever you listen to podcasts on Thursdays beginning December 3.

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