NatGeo’s ‘Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller’ gears up for a second season

The second season of the compelling Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller is set to premiere on National Geographic (DStv channel 181, Starsat change 220) on Thursdays at 9pm (CAT) from 17 February 2022.

The show follows award-winning journalist Mariana van Zeller as she taps into her underworld contacts to embed herself in the world’s most illicit smuggling pipelines.

In each episode, she puts safety on the line to follow one illegal and often dangerous black-market pipeline, from its mysterious source to its final destination. 

According to National Geographic, in this season, she goes deeper, but the deeper she goes, the darker it gets as she infiltrates the world’s of black-market plastic surgery, romance scams, white supremacy, stolen cars, outlaw motorcycle clubs, marijuana and meth. 

Armed with National Geographic’s trademark inside access, each episode follows Van Zeller as she works her way inside a different black market or global trafficking network where she meets the players and learns the business, all in an effort to understand the inner workings of the world’s multitrillion-dollar shadow economy.

The second season of Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller consists of 10 episodes and offers viewers a mission-driven adventure to places rarely seen, providing an intimate peek behind the curtain to provide a 360-degree view of these poorly understood trafficking networks.

“Topics this season include Van Zeller unveiling the inner workings of romance scams; following a meth superhighway, from a massive cartel-run lab in Sinaloa across the border and into the lives of American users; setting off on a wild journey through California’s black market for weed, which has mushroomed since marijuana was legalised four years ago; following a smuggling route of cars stolen from the US to shipping containers bound for West Africa, where the demand is skyrocketing; going inside the secretive world of outlaw motorcycle gangs, also known as 1% clubs, where her interest is piqued by a string of biker-related violence; and investigating the dark corners of black market plastic surgery, where greed and social media are driving patients toward deadly motel-room operations,” explained National Geographic.

Additionally, as America struggles to reckon with its white supremacist past, Van Zeller races to expose an underground movement hellbent on an even more violent white supremacist future.

It is a movement that trades in ideologies as dangerous as any narcotic or firearm, with one responsible for mass killings around the globe.

“Filming a whole season of Trafficked during a global pandemic was extremely challenging, but there’s been an explosion of black markets over the past year, and I think we all quickly realised that this series has become more relevant than ever,” said Van Zeller in a statement.

“With this second season, we have managed to dive even deeper and gain even more access into underworld networks around the world.”

Season one of Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller was a 2021 Gracie Award winner for Best Reporter/Correspondent – Mariana van Zeller and received a 2021 Critics Choice Real TV Award nomination for Best Crime/Justice Show.

The series was also recently nominated for a 2021 News and Documentary Emmy for Outstanding Business and Economic Documentary.

Compiled by Kaunda Selisho