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Mariana van Zeller _ This Past Weekend w_ Theo Von _603(M4A_128K) · Drawn of History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Today's guest is an Emmy award-winning journalist for National Geographic.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: She's known for her investigative reporting, where she goes and
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  Speaker 1: delves into some of the deepest, most dangerous black markets
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: in the world. Cartels, scammers, extremist groups, trafficking. She has
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: been there for it all. We're going to learn a
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  Speaker 1: lot today, and I'm already thankful for her time. Today's
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  Speaker 1: guest is Mariana Van Zeller.
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  Speaker 2: And I will find a song I've been singing for
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: such a.
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  Speaker 1: Long time Mariana Van Zeller, good to see you today.
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  Speaker 3: Great seeing you too.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate you coming in. Congrats on your Emmys.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Yeah, it was a good night.
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  Speaker 1: How many have you guys won now?
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  Speaker 3: We've won nine. But you know what's interesting? I was
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  Speaker 3: nominated for– I've been a journalist for over 20 years
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  Speaker 3: and throughout my career I've been nominated. I think I
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  Speaker 3: had one of the highest nominations with no wins ever,
• 1:04
  Speaker 3: which was like 39– or even more. It was like 40-something.
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  Speaker 1: Before you got your first win?
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  Speaker 3: Before I got my first win. The first one was
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  Speaker 3: last year. And I couldn't believe when they finally called
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  Speaker 3: our name the name of the team and we all
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  Speaker 3: went on stage. That first one was really sweet. That
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  Speaker 3: was last year.
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  Speaker 1: That's crazy. That many times you had to go and listen?
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  Speaker 1: And wait and be the loser.
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  Speaker 3: Many, many times.
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  Speaker 1: But I guess that's also the part of the trenches
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  Speaker 1: of like the entertainment industry that people don't think about.
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  Speaker 1: There's like a lot of times people may feel like
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  Speaker 1: we're doing good work or we're doing this or really
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  Speaker 1: any industry. But there's somebody before you. that had been
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: doing good work, that had put their time in. And
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  Speaker 1: even it takes a while to get even through like
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  Speaker 1: the award systems, you know?
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely. And also it's just, it's whatever. It's a prize
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: is a prize. It's not the most important thing in
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  Speaker 3: the world. But we, the show we do, Traffic, that
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  Speaker 3: was nominated this past season for 29 Emmys, it's a
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  Speaker 3: really hard show to put together. It's one of the,
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  Speaker 3: I always say it's the most challenging show in the
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  Speaker 3: world to put together. We're asking people, have you watched,
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  Speaker 3: do you know what the show's about?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: We're trying to get people who don't want to talk
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  Speaker 3: to talk to us and to open up their lives
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  Speaker 3: and show us their crazy underworld and their hidden corners
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  Speaker 3: of the world. And so it's really, really hard. And so...
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  Speaker 3: to finally be recognized. It's for the whole team. It's
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  Speaker 3: just that, that's what was special. Okay. What we're doing,
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  Speaker 3: we're doing something right here. I mean, yeah. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Cause usually, I mean, yeah. Tickling was the old school
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  Speaker 1: way to get people to just tell you everything, you know,
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  Speaker 1: but you, you really could, you come across some universes
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  Speaker 1: where I think if you tickled it'd be a, it'd
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  Speaker 1: be a little bit obtuse.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not sure if they'd like that.
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  Speaker 1: I know. It's like, it always was kind of like
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  Speaker 1: a last resort. Um, on this season of traffic, you
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  Speaker 1: guys have some, it looks like, uh, I've just seen
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  Speaker 1: the trailer. I've seen different clips. You guys have, I
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  Speaker 1: know you go to investigate into militias. Yep. Brides for sale.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, the trafficking of brides. Rehab scams, which was a
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: really interesting one. I've been covering the opiate crisis. But
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  Speaker 3: we also covered sort of the dark side of trying
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  Speaker 3: to get clean, which are these rehab scams that exist
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  Speaker 3: all over the country.
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  Speaker 1: What's one of the episodes from the new season, this
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  Speaker 1: season five, that really kind of you got kind of
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  Speaker 1: attached to, do you feel like? Huh.
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  Speaker 3: It's always a hard question because we spend so much
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  Speaker 3: time in each one. I'd say, I mean, Cartel USA
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  Speaker 3: is the first one for a good reason. I think
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  Speaker 3: it was really chilling what we discovered. We start, you know,
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  Speaker 3: I've been covering the cartel for many years now and
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  Speaker 3: have traveled extensively throughout Mexico, namely Sinaloa. I've reported more
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  Speaker 3: from Sinaloa, Mexico than anywhere else in the world and have,
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  Speaker 3: you know, reported on the drug trade as well. And
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  Speaker 3: I'd seen the presence of the cartel here in the U.S.,
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  Speaker 3: which is why I decided I wanted to do a
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  Speaker 3: story about what exactly that means, how much of it
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  Speaker 3: is it that here, how widespread it is, and what's
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  Speaker 3: that mean for the country. But like in small little
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  Speaker 3: city towns, they're operating in many cases and have these distribution,
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  Speaker 3: drug distribution centers out of small town America. We interviewed
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  Speaker 3: a couple of investigators from the Georgia Bureau of Investigations
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  Speaker 3: who were called because there had been a murder, a
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  Speaker 3: gruesome murder of a woman who'd been tortured. Her fingers
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  Speaker 3: were cut off by pliers one by one in a bathtub.
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  Speaker 3: She was basically killed while still conscious and alive with
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  Speaker 3: a chainsaw. And this is because her cartel boss, she
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  Speaker 3: was a drug runner, and her boss, who was in prison,
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  Speaker 3: by the way, all ordered through prison on a cell phone.
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  Speaker 3: He was giving the orders on a cell phone, live,
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  Speaker 3: and he believed that she had stolen some drugs. Turns
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  Speaker 3: out it was not the case. But this was in
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  Speaker 3: small town Georgia, like the last place you'd expect to
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  Speaker 3: see this kind of violence. But it's starting to come
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  Speaker 3: here as well. And I have seen this throughout my
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  Speaker 3: reporting in whether we're talking about sort of smaller sheriff
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  Speaker 3: offices to border patrol. Corruption is actually here. And it's
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  Speaker 3: a big tool that they use to be able to
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  Speaker 3: continue their operations. Go ahead.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, well, corruption, I mean, I think we're at
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  Speaker 1: a space now where to most people it feels like
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  Speaker 1: everything seems very corrupt, right? Are we allowing this drug trafficking?
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  Speaker 1: Are we allowing these cartels to work in our country?
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  Speaker 3: I think we're just combating it the wrong way. The
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  Speaker 3: war on drugs has been a massive failure. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: billions of dollars spent for no returns. I mean, we're
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  Speaker 3: seeing it's getting worse and worse. I think last year
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  Speaker 3: was the first year where the numbers didn't go up,
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  Speaker 3: but it's been going progressively up. I mean, in the last,
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  Speaker 3: I think Since 2000, one million people have died from
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  Speaker 3: the opiate crisis.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: You know, so I just don't think we are doing
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  Speaker 3: what we're supposed to be doing. We're not doing the
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  Speaker 3: right thing. We're not using the right tools to combat
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  Speaker 3: drug trafficking. And, you know, the cartel benefits from drug trafficking.
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  Speaker 3: It's their breadwinning industry.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's their big business.
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  Speaker 3: It's their big business.
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  Speaker 1: Like, what drugs are the cartels bringing in, I guess?
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  Speaker 1: That's where I'm— Everything.
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  Speaker 3: I mean, fentanyl, cocaine, meth. But also, I think one
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  Speaker 3: of the biggest misunderstandings we and was learning from me
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  Speaker 3: reporting on this was that a lot of these cartel
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  Speaker 3: operators are actually American, American born, American raised, don't even
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  Speaker 3: speak Spanish. One of the main guys that we featured
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  Speaker 3: in our episode is a guy called that we goes
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  Speaker 3: by the name of El Gringo, El Gringo. He was
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  Speaker 3: born in the United States, doesn't speak a word of Spanish,
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  Speaker 3: and he's a massive, he's sort of a wholesale distributor
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  Speaker 3: for the cartel. And he realized he could do it.
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  Speaker 3: He could distribute the drugs really well. He was really
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  Speaker 3: good with logistics. And do you know how he distributes
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  Speaker 3: the drugs? They come in through... Border Patrol, it's usually
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  Speaker 3: always or 90 percent of the time is official ports
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  Speaker 3: of entry. So it's not going.
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  Speaker 1: Sneaking through the woods or something or tying it to
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  Speaker 1: like a deer and having them run over the border
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  Speaker 1: or whatever. Right.
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  Speaker 3: Or little kids with backpacks. That happens as well. But
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  Speaker 3: most of it is official ports of entry. And then
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  Speaker 3: once it gets to the big cities. and then gets
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  Speaker 3: distributed by guys like this who also operate of small
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  Speaker 3: town America. He's using actually commercial planes to where he
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  Speaker 3: puts the drugs inside suitcases and has people like strippers,
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  Speaker 3: usually women that are more unassuming. And a lot of
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  Speaker 3: times strippers is what he told us.
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  Speaker 1: Wow.
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  Speaker 3: And you'd never think that, right? I was thinking trucks
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  Speaker 3: or vans full of drugs or the white vans full
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  Speaker 3: of drugs or something.
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  Speaker 1: No.
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  Speaker 3: It's actually in planes. A lot of times he says
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  Speaker 3: he uses Delta as his favorite airline.
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  Speaker 1: Delta is a great airline. I will say that. But
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  Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know the skies were that friendly,
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  Speaker 1: you know. I mean, it can get hella friendly if
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  Speaker 1: somebody's shipping Molly up there, I feel like. So when
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  Speaker 1: you start to learn this information, what do you do
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  Speaker 1: with it? Like I know you guys present it, right?
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  Speaker 1: Like you package it into an episode and you present
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  Speaker 1: it to people. But how do you convince people?
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  Speaker 3: People to talk to us.
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  Speaker 1: How do you convince people to talk to us? But
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  Speaker 1: how do you convince them you're not going to turn
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  Speaker 1: them in?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's the hardest part of our job.
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  Speaker 3: It's always the most challenging. I mean, we spend months,
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  Speaker 3: sometimes even years trying to convince people to talk to us. And,
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  Speaker 3: you know, there's no real benefit to them at first glance,
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  Speaker 3: at least. I think for me, I've learned that it's
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  Speaker 3: three main things. It's ego. People like to boast. And
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  Speaker 3: if you're the best counterfeiter in the world or the
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  Speaker 3: best guy at making fentanyl or smuggling guns or drugs,
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  Speaker 3: whatever it is, the best scammer you want. Sometimes your
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  Speaker 3: family doesn't even know what you do. We give them
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  Speaker 3: an opportunity with a mask and distorted voice to really
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  Speaker 3: brag about what they love. I mean, I've spoken to people.
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  Speaker 3: I'll never forget. We did an interview for season one, actually,
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  Speaker 3: which was with a guy, a Peruvian guy who makes
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  Speaker 3: these dollar, a hundred dollar bills and fifties that look
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  Speaker 3: exactly like the real thing. They're fake, but they're exactly
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  Speaker 3: like the real thing. And he'd spend Days and days
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: or nights because during the day he was actually a
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  Speaker 3: taxi driver. Nights and nights just perfecting the little creases
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  Speaker 3: and using– he used a certain powder that he was
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: able to– like everything so that it would taste. It
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  Speaker 3: would look– taste. I don't think people are putting it
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  Speaker 3: in your mouth. But so that it would smell, feel,
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  Speaker 3: sound exactly like a real Hanna-Dahl bill.
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  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
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  Speaker 3: And you should see him talking about this. Like he was,
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  Speaker 3: his eyes were like shining. He was so proud for
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  Speaker 3: being considered the best counterfeiter in.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you are a sculptor. I mean, you are, you're
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  Speaker 1: like a money Michelangelo, I guess. And that way, if
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  Speaker 1: you really did the best one ever.
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  Speaker 3: But they are actually, their entrepreneurship and their creativity just
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  Speaker 3: never ceases to surprise me. It's pretty incredible. And then
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  Speaker 3: the other reason I think is impunity. In many of
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  Speaker 3: these places, like Sinaloa, for example, there's just so much
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  Speaker 3: police corruption that they just don't see a downside to
• 9:35
  Speaker 3: talking to a person, to me, to Nat Geo. Now
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  Speaker 3: the show is on its fifth season, so it's sort
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  Speaker 3: of established. People trust us more. And then I think
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  Speaker 3: the third most important reason is a very human characteristic
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  Speaker 3: that we all share of wanting to be understood, right?
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  Speaker 3: When I approach people, I say, no matter who they are,
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  Speaker 3: I'm not here to judge you. I'm here because I
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  Speaker 3: really truly want to understand why you do what you do.
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  Speaker 3: I want to understand your world. And really, I think
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  Speaker 3: that's sort of the last thing that... gets them to
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  Speaker 3: decide whether it's a yes or a no. I've gotten
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: hundreds or thousands of no's. And that's the part that
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  Speaker 3: you don't see when you see the show, right? So
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  Speaker 3: it seems easy. But I think really is that sort
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  Speaker 3: of human connection and the ability that we have to
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  Speaker 3: tell them, look, I just want to listen. Because I
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  Speaker 3: think listening and understanding is way more important than just judging.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. And I think also when people are
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: living something in secret, right, it's tough. I think living
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: in secret is tough no matter what it is. Like
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  Speaker 1: if it's something that you're keeping from. loved ones. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: if it's a reality, sometimes, sometimes that you're keeping from yourself,
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  Speaker 1: like I've done things in my life and I almost
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  Speaker 1: like compartmentalize them. So I don't have to feel them,
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  Speaker 1: you know? So I don't have to feel like I
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  Speaker 1: have done those things. And, uh, and I think living
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  Speaker 1: in secret and not having somebody to share something with, um, it's,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, it's just, it can be, it can, it
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  Speaker 1: can get very painful over time. So yeah, having, I
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  Speaker 1: think an outlet of just somebody to even talk to
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  Speaker 1: for a shameful or dark or confusing to you can be.
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  Speaker 3: Really, really wonderful.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it must be just such a high when you're
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  Speaker 1: approaching like people who are, I guess, kind of underworld characters, maybe.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what they are. Black market operators, underworld characters,
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  Speaker 3: people who their whole lives have been trying to stay
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  Speaker 3: out of the limelight and, you know, hiding and doing
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  Speaker 3: illegal stuff where they don't want journalists poking around.
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  Speaker 1: And are you ever amazed? Did you ever meet someone
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  Speaker 1: you were like, I cannot believe this person is involved?
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  Speaker 3: Oh, my God. Constantly. Seriously, all the time. And you
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  Speaker 3: think that after I've been covering black markets for 20
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  Speaker 3: years that you think that after some time I sort
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  Speaker 3: of have an idea of who's involved. It's it's not
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: only it's. Not only, you know, your neighbor that looks
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  Speaker 3: like a completely normal dude that's involved in some sort
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: of illegal activity that you had no idea about.
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  Speaker 1: You're like a Mets fan or whatever, probably.
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  Speaker 3: But that is also happening all around. I mean, I
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: filmed episodes. We did an episode about assassins that was
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: just a couple of miles from my home in L.A.
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  Speaker 3: And I interviewed an assassin, a guy who's paid to kill,
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  Speaker 3: just a couple of miles in L.A. An undisclosed location,
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  Speaker 3: but in L.A., not far from my house. It's insane.
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  Speaker 1: And where did you, do you go alone?
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  Speaker 3: No, I go with my team, but no security. Usually people,
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  Speaker 3: usually I'm the only woman. You know, there's, we have
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: some female members of our team, but on the majority
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: of cases, it's just me and my camera team who
• 12:31
  Speaker 3: are all male, producer, director. So we're six people usually.
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  Speaker 3: Very often I'm the only woman. And it's never with security.
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  Speaker 3: That's a question we get asked a lot is do
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: we travel with security? And I think that what security
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: would do for us is completely counterproductive to our job.
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: We're trying to convince people to trust us, to show
• 12:53
  Speaker 3: them that we respect them. And if I show up
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  Speaker 3: with security, I'm basically telling them, I don't trust you
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  Speaker 3: and possibly I don't respect, why should you trust me, right?
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like I've thought about having security sometimes, even just
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: out in the world. And I just keep shying away
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  Speaker 1: from it because I just don't like the energy of that.
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  Speaker 1: But then also the world gets scary sometimes. But I
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: think in your place, yeah, you're coming with a bridge
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  Speaker 1: of like, I want to be able to communicate. I'm
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: going to put my cards on the table that I'm
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: here in peace. When you pull up on an assassin,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: like where do you meet them at? Where do they go? Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So, again, it's many months, sometimes years of trying to get.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: I've been wanting to do a story about assassins. It's
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: sort of of all the black markets.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah. This is a former police officer. In South Africa,
• 13:36
  Speaker 3: South Africa is one of the biggest countries in the
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: world in terms of assassinations and assassination attempts and actual
• 13:41
  Speaker 3: assassinations and people being killed. And you can hire an
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: assassin in South Africa for like a thousand dollars. And
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: so we, and from LA, from interviewing that assassin, we
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: went to South Africa to see why was it this
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: crazy world and what could we learn from that? And, um, and, uh,
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: you were asking, uh, yeah, like when you go to
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: meet an assassin, like, how did that, how did I
• 14:02
  Speaker 3: get a meeting with him?
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: So in the case of the American assassin, for many
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: years I've been wanting to do that story. If you
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: think of a black market, you think assassins are sort
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: of the worst of the worst thing, right? Not easy, right?
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  Speaker 3: It's not as if you can go online and do
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: a Google search for an assassin.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like, yeah, I need, yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Right, but I have a contact here in L.A. that
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  Speaker 3: I've done many stories with who really connects me to
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: people in the underworld. He's a member of the underworld himself,
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: and he's a really colorful character. I've done many stories
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: with his help. And I contacted him and he said, look,
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: I'm going to see what I can do.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: That's just an old Gavin Newsom joke. Sorry. And I
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: shouldn't joke around. Sometimes I do joke around a little bit.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Let's go back.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: You can definitely joke around.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: OK. Sometimes I feel like, yeah.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: Please do. These are serious topics, but it's not. I
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: hate it when people interview me and they think they
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: can't have fun.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: OK.
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: Talking about such serious. I don't take myself too seriously.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: So please.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: OK.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: Have fun.
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: Thank you. So you have this contact into the underworld.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: And he connects you or does he connect you on text?
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Does he connect you in person?
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: So, yeah. So the thing is with this contact, we
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: always have to meet in person because obviously I can't
• 15:16
  Speaker 3: text him. Even WhatsApp and Signal doesn't work. I can't
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: just text him. I want to see, do you have
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: an assassin for me? So there's always an in-person meeting,
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: which involves a lot of cigarettes. We smoke a lot
• 15:26
  Speaker 3: of cigarettes. He smokes a lot of cigarettes. I get
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: nervous and I always smoke a lot of cigarettes.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: You have to smoke it.
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: It's actually one of the– I find I'm not a
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: smoker myself or– I smoke socially once in a while,
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: but I don't smoke every day or even every week.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: But I find it, it's the best, whatever you are
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: in the world, if you have cigarettes with you and
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: you're trying to interview some of these characters. you offer
• 15:47
  Speaker 3: them a cigarette or you ask for one of their cigarettes,
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: it immediately puts you on the same playing level, level
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: playing field. It really just helps calm my nerves. It
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: probably helps calm the nerves of the person I'm with.
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: So with this guy, it involves waiting for many hours
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: for him to show up because he's never on time.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: And then when he shows up, it's like many cigarettes.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's a black market, you know.
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: A lot of cigarettes. And then I usually tell him like, hey,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: we're looking into doing a story about this and that.
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: And in that case, it was assassins. And he said,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: I actually know one. He's a hitman. I've known him
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: for a long time. And he organized this meeting and
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: he actually drove me to meet the guy. And he
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: told me all off the bat, be careful. This guy
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: is I think he's sort of bipolar. I've seen this
• 16:27
  Speaker 3: guy be super happy and suddenly pull out a gun
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: and pointed at somebody. He's he's a little crazy. And
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: I said, but do you really think this guy is
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: actually an assassin? A lot of people just like to brag, right? Oh, yeah.
• 16:38
  Speaker 3: Is he an actual assassin? He said, dude, I've seen
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: him being paid $ 180, 000 or whatnot for a hit. He's
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: known in my community. People know him. This is a
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: guy that's well known. And so that was it. And
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: so we met. And so we get there. It's at night,
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: undisclosed place, but very close to my home. And he's
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: waiting outside the car. And The moment I get there,
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: you could see he's like jittery and nervous and not happy.
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: And he was there because his friend asked for this favor.
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: And in his case, sometimes it's easier for me to
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: sort of have that human connection and try to talk
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: about how I want to understand what they do. His case,
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: he was just not. He was like, OK, here are
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: the ground rules. And he said immediately, see this? First thing,
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: he pulled out his gun and said, show me his gun.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: He's like, if this is a fucking setup, if the
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: police shows up, I'm going to point this. I'm going
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: to shoot you, all of you, you and your team
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: are all dead. It's like, okay. And so the rest
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: of the interview was me being super afraid that what
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: if police shows up? Not because I'm there, but what
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: if they just, what if a car just drives by? Yeah,
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: what if some.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Chubby cop's hiding from his shift over here right off
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: the edge of his DSW shoes or something?
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: Exactly. So I was so scared. I was so scared.
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: And I think it was the shortest interview we've ever done.
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: I think it lasts like 15, 20 minutes. But also because,
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: you know, there's the initial questions is what do you do?
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: How often have you done it? Why do you do it?
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: How do you live with yourself doing this kind of thing?
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: I always, the accountability questions, I always ask them. But
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: the part that he didn't like, it wasn't actually like,
• 18:03
  Speaker 3: do you know that you're doing harm to people? This is,
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: what you're doing is horrible. Like, do you feel guilty
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: about this? The questions he didn't actually like was when
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: I started asking him, he says, I only kill men,
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: no women and children. And I asked him, but do
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: you have children? And basically, obviously, I was trying to
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: get to the point that even if the child isn't killed,
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: their dad is killed. That's horrible and traumatic.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: But he's already better than Netanyahu now.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: He was like, don't ask me questions about my children.
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: You're trying to get all soft on me. He was
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: like his macho persona was getting, you know, he didn't
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: like that.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: He didn't like talking about his children?
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: No.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: Because it probably made things very personal for him. Yeah.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think part of his persona being a hitman
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: is that he, you know, you can't show emotion.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: And so I was threatening to him in the sense
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: that I was trying to get emotion out of him.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: And he was not okay with it. And he said,
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: is this over? And yeah. And then we left. And
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: how did.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Did he say how he lived? How did they live
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: with what they do? Or like... Is it money? Is
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: it once you get into that, you can't get out
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: of it? Was there any?
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So in his case, it was money. And again,
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: it was a 20 minute conversation. I couldn't get much
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: out of him. But fast forward to South Africa, where
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: I did interview a guy, an assassin for two hours.
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: And his story is fascinating, actually, because he he got
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: he was his parents were killed when he was eight
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: or nine years old. He was an orphan. And he
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: was bouncing around from like family member to family member.
• 19:28
  Speaker 3: Nobody wanted him. He ended up on the streets when
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: he was like 14 years old. No work, no education.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: And eventually started selling drugs for as a drug dealer
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: on the streets. And eventually somehow, even with that, there
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: wasn't enough money. And he figured out that he could
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: make more money. Somebody offered him more money to go
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: and kill a few people. And he did or a person.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: And he did. And it worked. He did. he was high,
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: he said. He was very, very high. He says the
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: only way he could do it is by being high.
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: But he did it, and he was able to do
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: it because a lot of people aren't, thankfully. And so
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: while talking, it starts, he says, but I only kill
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: bad people. It's like, what does that mean? Bad people,
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: according to who? Well, they're bad people. They're people who
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: are stealing or who have raped or whatever in his
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: mind he had justified for doing what he was doing.
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: And then again, I talked about, do you realize that
• 20:20
  Speaker 3: what you're doing, because he also said he doesn't kill
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: women and children, but do you realize that what you're
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: doing to those women and particularly to those children is
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: exactly what was done to you, right? As a kid
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: who you left an orphan because of it, it changed
• 20:31
  Speaker 3: your whole life. You're traumatized by it. And he had
• 20:35
  Speaker 3: a moment where he's like, I had never thought about that.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: I had never in my life thought about that. And
• 20:39
  Speaker 3: we finished the interview and he comes up to me
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: and he's almost into years and he's like, you have
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: no idea what this has done, this conversation. Nobody has
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: ever been interested in my life or why I do
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: what I do. And I've never been able to speak
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: about myself. And it was a therapy session for him.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: That doesn't mean that I'm healing people. I'm not. But
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: what I am, I think, is at least trying to
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: understand and trying to show people who watch Trafficked why
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: people turn to become criminals because no one, I believe,
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: is born wanting to be a criminal.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: I believe that there is evil out there. I used
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: to not think that there was. I believe that there
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: is kind of pure evil, right? Now, can it be
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: coerced into better ways? I don't know if all of
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: it can sometimes. I mean, there's some pretty dark stuff
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: that happens out there.
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: For sure.
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: But I do agree with you also that Everybody needs
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: somebody to listen, which is crazy, right? Yeah. Like even
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Satan probably is like, God, I wish sometimes somebody would
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: just sit with me for a couple minutes, you know?
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Maybe I wouldn't be such a piece of shit. You know,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but I think it's like the catharsis
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: of having somebody see you, even if it's a part
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: of you that you hate or it's a part of
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: you you're so ashamed of and not look at it
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: with disgust, you know? I think that, yeah, the catharsis
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: and the exhale that can happen inside of somebody's soul
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: from a moment like that is pretty powerful. Right. Man,
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: you feel bad that people get stuck into those type
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: of circumstances. And you can also easily see how it
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: can happen to people. Absolutely.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. You know, if you look at– let me say
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: that I believe evil exists as well. But I do
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: think that the vast majority of the people that I
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: spend time with, whether the drug dealers or the traffickers
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: or the scammers or whatnot, that these are people that
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: are born out of the circumstances that they're born in.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: A hundred percent.
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: There's nothing that says that Mexicans from Sinaloa, from the
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: mountain regions of Sinaloa where the– Sinaloa cartel operates. There's
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: nothing in their DNA. There's nothing that says that they
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: are prone to being more drug traffickers, have a higher
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: number of drug traffickers than, you know, a person like
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: myself born in Portugal or you were born in Louisiana, right?
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Yes. Young lady, I was born in Louisiana.
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: Beautiful state, by the way. So what is it? It's
• 22:59
  Speaker 3: because if you're born in an area where there aren't
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: a lot of job opportunities, where your father, your grandfather
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: are drug dealers, and this is what Your whole, you know,
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: many generations have survived on. You know, that's what you're
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: going to be. I remember interviewing a pimp also in L.A.,
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: funnily enough, where he was a young kid. It was
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: like 26 years old. And I was asking him, why pimp?
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, did you? And he was like, look, you know,
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: you ask kids in rich neighborhoods or middle class, and
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: they're saying they want to be lawyers and doctors. In
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: my neighborhood, the heroes were the pimps. The people we
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: looked up to were the pimps. So all my life,
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: I've just wanted to be a pimp.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Everybody in my neighborhood was single parent family.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: The pimps were the only people that at least had
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: a gal around. At least these pimps and hoes were
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: in a relationship of some sort.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying?
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: The rest, everybody else was just like, jeepers, okay. We're
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: eating lunchables at night. This fucking household sucks. But, yeah,
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: at least pimps and hoes, like, we're trying to figure
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: something out, you know? So, yeah, I can.
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: And they were well-dressed and they were distributing money, right?
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: There's definitely a level of pomp, like, in poverty of, like,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: certain things, you know? Yeah. Yeah, like I even remember
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: like getting like wheel covers for my first car. Like
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: it was a total piece of junk. But it was
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: my car and I had like these fake rims on it,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: but they were shiny and they looked like if another
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: idiot like me saw it, he'd be like, damn, that
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: guy's got it. Yeah, there's all these things of like
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: having some sort of stature, I guess.
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: Right. Yeah. Status is really interesting because I was listening
• 24:27
  Speaker 3: to a podcast the other day. It was Andre Rogan.
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: I can't remember the name of the guy, but it
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: was so interesting to me because we all know that
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: we all need community, right? It's a huge part of
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: being a human being. We need community. We need identity.
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: But the stat, there was this guy, I cannot remember
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: his name, but he talked about, he did a book
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: about the need, the biological need that we all have
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: for status, which I found really interesting. So this sort
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: of raised to the top is actually something that's.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: In our DNA. Yeah. Well, then that's interesting because they're
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: talking about like, you know, if AI got to certain levels,
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: we'd have to create some sort of a universal basic income.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: And then I wonder in what way there would be
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: few people that probably had a lot of ownership over status.
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: And then in what ways would the rest of us
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: look for status or created? Maybe we'd realize that there
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: was an error Because I think even evolution over time
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: realizes sometimes, oh, this isn't the right path and it
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: course corrects. Maybe we would realize, oh, that this search
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: for status isn't rewarding us as people and maybe just
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: investing the status that we want for ourselves. If we
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: can get that out of somebody else's joy, creating joy
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: in somebody else, then maybe that would be like a
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: course correction. I'm not sure. Yeah.
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: I do think it's important for human evolution though, which
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: is why probably that is within us, right? The wanting
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: to become the best and then creating the best.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: That's a good point, huh? Probably. Well, for certain, there's
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: a thing inside of humans where we want to know why, right?
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Like a lot of animals are running around like, you know,
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: you don't wake up and like there's like a goat
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: over there sitting like on the edge of the property
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: and he's having a coffee and he's like, scribbling down
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: why things are going on today or something. But we, like,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: we want answers, you know?
• 26:13
  Speaker 3: Not everybody, but a lot of us, yeah. I mean,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: you do. You're obviously a very curious person, which is
• 26:19
  Speaker 3: why you have a podcast and you like talking to people.
• 26:21
  Speaker 3: But I don't think everybody is that curious.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: You do. You're over there tickling Voldemort. Okay, you're over
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: there bumming menthols off of Voldemort so that you can
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: get a little bit of information. So I'm out here
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: on the, I'm in the tertiary. You are in the trenches.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: Tickling Voldemort is going to be on my bio right now.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: You're tickling Voldemort.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: What do you do for a living?
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  Speaker 1: Go to ShipStation.com slash T-H-E-O to sign up for your
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: free trial. There's no credit card or contract required, and
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: you can cancel at any time. That's ShipStation.com slash Theo.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: Let's go down another road. You had mentioned that what's
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: happened signal or farcical, right?
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure if they're farcical. I mean, I know
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: that there are ways the government can go into it.
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: I mean, there's Pegasus, which is a program developed in Israel,
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: which was used by governments all around the world, including
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: Saudi Arabia. At some point, it was being used by
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: the United States government as well, in which they could
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: basically gain access to our phones and see everything inside,
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: even the encrypted messaging apps.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Apps.
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. However, it's still the app. Those are still apps
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: that I use. Right. But if, you know, we don't
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: talk about locations and dates or the most sensitive information,
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: we usually talk face to face or certain ways that
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to disclose.
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: For sure. I went to Katara a few months ago
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: to do comedy for some military personnel over there. Yeah.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: And Part of me wondered if they had tapped my
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: phone when I was there.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: Because they kind of had me come very quickly at
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: the last minute. I was like, why aren't they having
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: me come, you know? Oh, wow.
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: I mean, I thought it was very– Was it the
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: government that invited you or was it the military?
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: It was the– yes, it was the hospitality people there.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: And they were extremely hospitable and they were very kind.
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't get– nothing inside of me set off any
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: like qualms from them personally like that they had any–
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: where they were out for anything– Nefarious against me.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: For the Qatari military that you were doing this?
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: It was for the U.S. It was a joint base.
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: But it just happened very fast. They're like, you know,
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: my agent was like, if you can be at the
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: airport in like five hours, you can go. Wow. And
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: you'll be back in 36 hours. Wow. And so it
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: was just a lot. And I was like, I was
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: very gracious. I would go back in a heartbeat. I
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: had a great time. Um, so in a.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: Situation like that, do you go, do you already know what,
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: do you have a set? Do you have your comedy
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: set already?
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, that was a hectic moment for me because, well,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: first I thought there was a part of me that
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: was like, I'm going to, I could, are they going
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: to kill me or whatever? Cause you know, journalism has
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: recently become a little bit more, and I wouldn't call
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: this journalism. I would definitely call this somebody recovering from addiction,
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: doing their best in front of equipment from Best Buy. But, uh,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: but I would say that, but these days that is
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: kind of like what the world, you know, it's like,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: It's somebody trying to share what they think or get
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: information that's not mainstream media, right? And I just didn't know.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: I said, who knows if they put out a hit
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: on the top 80 podcasts and like, okay, they're following us.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: There was a part of me that was scared.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: So what did you do? Did you do anything with
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: your phone to protect yourself?
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Well, the first thing I did was bring a friend.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: I was like, I'm not dying by myself over there.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: So I brought my buddy Bizzle because he's had a
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: good life. And so I was like, yeah, I'm picking
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: somebody that tapped. I'm not picking somebody that still has
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: to figure it out. But anyway, no, I just– because
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: at first I didn't think that they would tap my
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: phone or that they could have. But I don't know.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: Is it easier over there? And then I asked Sean
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: Ryan and he's like, they probably did. They probably did.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: They probably– they tapped, yeah.
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's very possible. You know, I went to Vietnam.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: I did a story about the bride trafficking story we
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: did was in Vietnam.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And this is in this new season.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: For the new season, yeah. And it's a very sort
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: of the government controls the press over there. And so
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: it took us months to even get the visa approved,
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: the journalism visa to go to the country where we
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: can bring all our camera gear and all that. And
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: once we did, we were told immediately. We were assigned
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: a government minder, a guy who's with us the whole time.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: And he also had some law enforcement guy with him.
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: So every single interview we did, they were right there. Oh,
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: and we had to send them questions in advance before
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: every interview. And they would have to tell us it's
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: okay to ask this. It's not okay to ask that.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: Which for me, for the kind of work we do,
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: is horrible. We're trying to talk to, you know, these
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: bright traffickers and these underworld characters, the Voldemorts of the world.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: And we were being spied and listened, not spied, listened
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: to the whole time. And then... we actually found out
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: through some sources there that they believed our phones were
• 34:40
  Speaker 3: absolutely being tapped. And there was one day, and so, oh,
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: and that our vans, our rental vans were being tapped
• 34:47
  Speaker 3: as well. And when we were told this one afternoon,
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: the next morning we had to go get into the
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: vans and we were told that the fixer had taken
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: our van because the van had had some problems overnight.
• 34:59
  Speaker 3: And we were like, oh, we are definitely being listened
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: to spite and listened to bananas.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: While your van was sitting there overnight doing nothing.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: Nothing.
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: And it wasn't even his job. I mean, he was
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: the government minder and he took our van and disappeared
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: with it for hours. And we're like, okay, this is.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Real for real. But that's the problem too. In some
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: of those third world countries, you have to work two
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: or three jobs even to get things organized. You're like, wait,
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: I'm the fixer. I'm also, I also have to install
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: these spy equipment. Come on guys.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: And then I get into the hotel room and we're
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: staying at a really nice hotel in Northern Vietnam.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: And, The Rex Hotel, was that it?
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: It is not the Rex Hotel. Is there a Rex Hotel?
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: There's a beautiful Rex Hotel, I believe, in Ho Chi
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: Minh City.
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, you've been.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've just been there once when I was a student,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: but it was nice. This was a long time ago.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: We were in a place called Sapa. It's up in
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: the mountains.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, carry on, sorry.
• 35:49
  Speaker 3: And the phone is, there is a light, a red light.
• 35:52
  Speaker 3: So basically, I'm calling another room and discussing when is
• 35:55
  Speaker 3: dinner or something with one of my colleagues. And the
• 35:57
  Speaker 3: red light is like going on and then... Basically all
• 36:01
  Speaker 3: signs that I was being... And then I was not
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: on the phone, and then the red light kept on
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: going in moments that I was on my cell phone
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: talking to people, which they're not... If I was being
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: in fact tapped, which people there told me I was,
• 36:14
  Speaker 3: they're not doing a great job because figure out the light.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: You know? Yeah, like the craziest would have been if
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: you just opened the closet and it's just like a
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: little Vietnamese guy just over here just.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: With a glass.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that is kind of funny when
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: you get into like, you know, like... I mean, I
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: don't want to say poor because a lot of times
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: I think of poor countries as more creative countries. But
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: as you get into more creative countries, you'll see like
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: more creative, fun things like that that are actually.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's why I love traveling.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's pretty heartwarming to see the way that they're like,
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: this guy's a spy. This is your equipment. It's just
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: an empty pint glass. And the guy's like, come on.
• 36:50
  Speaker 3: It's so good. It's so good. But the Biden administration
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: had been there with the State Department. Several members of
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: State Department's phones had been tapped. They found out. So
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: it is absolutely possible. It actually happens. And it happens
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: at the highest level. So for, you know, poor journalists
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: like myself, where they're trying to control what I'm putting
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: out there, they were afraid that I was going to
• 37:10
  Speaker 3: be critical of China because China are the ones who
• 37:13
  Speaker 3: are sort of The kidnapped women, Vietnamese women, are being
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: taken to China and they have a very sort of
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: fragile alliance with China and they don't want to make
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: them angry. So they had every– they wanted to know
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: everything we were doing and make sure they weren't going
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: to make China angry.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: It's so sad that when you think about the news, right?
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: Because the news or– journalism is kind of the loudest
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: voice of a nation, right? Or just anything, you know,
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: it's just, it's so crazy how compromised, um, our voices
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: are at the smallest level and at the loudest level. Um,
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: take me into some of that bride trafficking because it
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: sounds bride. You're like, Oh, congratulations. You know, you're like trafficking.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: You're like, Oh, this took a turn, you know, in
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: just one word. Um, yeah. Take me through some of that.
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: What do you kind of learn? Like what took you
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: over there in the first place? And then what's that
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: relationship between China and Vietnam?
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah. So we started seeing these videos online of essentially
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: these women, a lot of times girls, teenage girls in
• 38:16
  Speaker 3: markets in broad daylight being nabbed from the side of
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: the street or these markets and then being kidnapped. Is
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: that real? Yes. These exist. And against their will, you'd
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: see them screaming and yelling. And we were, well, what
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: is this? And we found out that a lot of
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: them were being victims of this bribe trafficking, where it
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: exists because in China, you know, for many years they
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: had the, it started in 1970, they started the one-child policy.
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: So this one, I remember seeing this one. You see
• 38:50
  Speaker 3: there's a woman there?
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, how scary.
• 38:54
  Speaker 3: Sometimes it's their own families that sell them. A lot
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: of times they're just kidnapped in the middle of the
• 39:00
  Speaker 3: streets and taken across the border to China.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: And people can't help?
• 39:04
  Speaker 3: And so it's a little bit— I think people decide not
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: to help. There's also a tradition, which doesn't help the
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: situation very much, but there is a tradition amongst the
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: Hmong community, which is terrible. But if you're engaged, it's
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: a tradition that you kidnap your wife. to take to
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: the father and ask for permission for her hand. And
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: it's sort of done with the acceptance of both families.
• 39:34
  Speaker 3: And sometimes the woman is the last to know. So
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: what traffickers have been doing is that they've been using
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: this cultural tradition to benefit their own actual kidnapping.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're sort of like a mariachi band or something,
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: and they think it's like part of the thing. Exactly.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, exactly. And they're actually kidnapping these women.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: And so they kidnap these women. And where do they
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: what were you able to find out more? Yeah.
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: So what happens is one child policy, a lot of
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: in China, if you had more than one child, you'd
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: have heavy fines. So as soon as you are pregnant,
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: people wanted to know if it was a boy or girl.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: And in China, culturally, men are the breadwinners. They're the
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: ones who will take care of the parents when they're older.
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: And so it's very important to have men and not
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: women for them. And so there were massive amounts of
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: abortions done if they found out it was a female.
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: So nowadays, there are more men in China than there
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: are women.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's got to suck.
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: Single men. And again, if you're single in China, it's
• 40:29
  Speaker 3: looked down upon because you're not procreating, you're not giving
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: your parents grandkids. And there's enormous pressure on these men
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: to find wives. And, you know, there just aren't enough.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: But it's not even their fault. The government set it up.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: I know. So it's like, what do you?
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: I know. It's terrible. But then obviously the last resort
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: is that they go into these poor communities in Vietnam
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: and they pay these traffickers to kidnap them and pay
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: them thousands of dollars to have these women. And the
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: stories we heard were so sad. I mean, this woman
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: who was trafficked, in some cases, again, the families actually
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: sell them. I don't believe it was the case with
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: this woman. She was trafficked. She arrived in this apartment
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: in the big city in China, and she was immediately
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: locked in a room. And the husband would rape her,
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: would come in, and then she got pregnant. And then
• 41:18
  Speaker 3: they took the baby as soon as she gave birth,
• 41:21
  Speaker 3: took the baby away from her. And then she got
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: another baby and then took the baby away from her.
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: And then she was obviously depressed, so depressed, thinking of
• 41:30
  Speaker 3: committing suicide, awful. And she, at that point, had given
• 41:34
  Speaker 3: them two children. The grandparents were living in the house, too,
• 41:36
  Speaker 3: and taking care of the kids. And she convinced them
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: to let her go see her family in Vietnam, which
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: she hadn't seen for like six years. And she did.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: And she had to make the decision. Do I go
• 41:47
  Speaker 3: and see my parents in Vietnam and leave my kids behind?
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: behind or do I stay here as a kidnapped victim
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: in a way that I can still have a relationship
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: with her kids wow and so it was awful because
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: she chose to go back to Vietnam knowing full well
• 42:01
  Speaker 3: that she will never see her kids again and she
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: was showing me photos and it was just heartbreaking it
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: was really horrible sorry to bring it down.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: This way no I mean it's just like we live
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: in such uh We all live in such different worlds
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: so often, you know, I mean, you can literally be
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: falling asleep at night in a warm bed and you're okay.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: And then you, somebody else, somewhere else is getting on
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: a train and having to never see their children again, you.
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: Know, having to make that decision.
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. But how did it behoove the guy? If he
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: doesn't have a wife, if he needs to have a wife,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: did he just want the woman only for sexual purposes?
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Do some of them like in that situation?
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: In this situation, yes. In other situations, mostly it's because
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: of having a woman. But other situations, it's also for companionship.
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: Although it's harder if you're detained and kidnapped, it's harder
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: for you to take the woman out for dinner, I'd imagine.
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: But there are some situations where the woman sees themselves
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: trapped and then it's There's a lot of shame that
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: goes with being in that situation where then you prefer
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: not to go back home and you just accept your
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: new reality, which is awful.
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: It's very depressing.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's like that story you would see sometimes in
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: movies where someone would get kidnapped and then raped and
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: then brought back home and then people would shun her
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: because she.
• 43:20
  Speaker 3: Had been raped. Yeah.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: And it's like, oh. Yeah.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: And the same thing, actually, it reminds me a lot
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: of the African immigration and even Central American immigration, but
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: particularly African immigration where- I've done many stories about kids.
• 43:34
  Speaker 3: One was a soccer trafficking story where kids were promised
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: by these fake agents that they would take them to
• 43:39
  Speaker 3: Europe to play in these big clubs. And then they'd
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: get there and they'd sell their house, sell anything they
• 43:44
  Speaker 3: have to pay the agent. And then they'd get to
• 43:46
  Speaker 3: Europe and they'd be abandoned, right? But at that point,
• 43:49
  Speaker 3: they were so just embarrassed because they were sort of
• 43:52
  Speaker 3: the hope for the whole family, right? This is the
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: child that's going to bring us prosperity, right? And then
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: they were just embarrassed. So they never spoke to their
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: families again. And they would just live in misery on
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: the streets of Europe.
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: So that was a scam. They were taking people there.
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: They weren't, there was no soccer. There was no setup.
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: People had paid money to be a part of this thing,
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: this opportunity. They made it look great with videos and
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: pamphlets or whatever. And then there was nothing.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: There was nothing. But the shame that's.
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah. How can I go home? I'm the one that
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: I cost my whole, I cost my family everything.
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. So then these stories aren't told and nobody
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: knows that this is actually happening because In their minds,
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: the family is saying, oh, he must have made it
• 44:29
  Speaker 3: really rich. He's not contacting the family anymore. The stories
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: that they keep hearing is of success. The same happens
• 44:35
  Speaker 3: in the, you know, immigration that we see in Central
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: America to the United States or, you know, the people
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: coming to the U.S., a lot of them, they are
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: hearing the stories of success.
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 44:44
  Speaker 3: And so that's, in many cases, what they're not hearing,
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: the stories of desperation and how hard it is to
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: get here.
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're just hearing the advertising, really, you know, or
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: the positive advertising. Yeah. Are there brokers that are brokering
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: those women in those countries? Is it like a company
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: that's like, okay, we need to try and get this
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: many women a month? I'd love to know that. And
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: then how often is this happening over there?
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: It's really hard to get numbers. We spoke to organizations
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: who are on the ground sort of taking care of
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: the victims. Some of them managed to escape and come back.
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: And they say it's in the thousands, but it's impossible
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: to know exactly how many. It is... Unbelievable. The craziest
• 45:23
  Speaker 3: part of it is because our hands were sort of
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: tied behind our backs in terms of reporting, we had
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: the government minder with us at all times, a police officer,
• 45:30
  Speaker 3: like everything we did. We went out in the middle
• 45:32
  Speaker 3: of the night to try to film behind their backs.
• 45:34
  Speaker 3: It was really hard. But we actually were able to
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: contact a group of local journalists who were actually doing
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: their own investigation. And they were mainly Chinese and they
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: were able to film undercover. So we saw them. They
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: went and had meetings pretending to be buyers in northern Vietnam.
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: And then they also went to some brothels in China
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: where you are given. They showed us. It was like
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: lists and lists with photos of girls, their bodies. It's
• 46:08
  Speaker 3: like modeling, advertising.
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: Their height, their weight, their body.
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: But it's for girls that are for sale. And so
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: he was seeing like a whole catalog of beautiful girls.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: Some of them looked like they were 14 years old.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: And they're going through the catalog and then they can
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: just point and say, I want this one. And then
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: that person has delivered to you. It's crazy. And a
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: lot of them are being held basically at these brothels
• 46:31
  Speaker 3: on the border in China already where this guy also
• 46:34
  Speaker 3: got access. So he went in, crazy video. He went in,
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: it's a long corridor full of dark corridor full of rooms.
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: And then the brothel woman, he told them that he
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: was there to meet a wife. And the woman opened
• 46:48
  Speaker 3: the door. He goes in. He gets in, and there's
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: like three or four women in there. And there's total darkness.
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: He can't see a thing at all. And they're communicating
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: very low and talking to him and saying— what do
• 47:02
  Speaker 3: you want? What sex do you want? Let's do it.
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: And he was like, oh, no, because there's a journalist,
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: undercover journalist, saying I don't want sex. She's like, please,
• 47:10
  Speaker 3: they'll beat us if you don't have sex with us.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: And he had been locked inside at this point by
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: the woman, the brothel owner on the outside.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: So he had to do it?
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: No, and then he managed to figure out a way
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: where he started knocking on the door and saying that
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: he had to go, that something had happened and came
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: up with an excuse to leave. But even him, and
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: he's an undercover journalist that covers the worst of the
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: worst crimes, he was telling me it was one of
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: the most depressing and nerve-wracking things he's ever done in
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: his life. And these three, four women holed up in
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: there in total darkness and forced to have sex with
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: men that come like this. And then a lot of
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: them are sold to become brides as well. Yeah, it's dark.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: Is there regulation in those areas over that sort of thing?
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: They say there is, but obviously what we found is
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: that there isn't.
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: And this is part of a new episode?
• 47:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah. This is one of the episodes of this season. Yeah.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: How do you leave a place like that and not
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: bring it with you, not feel like you have to
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: go back and do something? What is that like?
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: I think that's the hardest part. It's not so much
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: about bringing a lot of people, you know, I get
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: asked sometimes how do I not, why am I not
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: depressed and, you know, at home locked on drugs because
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: of all of what I've seen. It's not so much
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: for me. It's not so much that. It's the fact that,
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: you know, we live a little bit on somebody's nightmare
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: for a day, you know, and then we have the
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: privilege of coming back. You know, we're almost like, you know,
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: feels like we're exploiting their nightmare because we want them
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: to share their stories.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I can see how it could feel like that
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: at times. How do you manage that feeling? I mean, yeah,
• 48:52
  Speaker 1: how do you manage that?
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: I'd say that the way that I rationalize it, I'm
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: not patting myself on the back because I think journalists
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: love to say that they have a very important job.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: And I do think journalism is important, but I'm not
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: the kind of journalist that goes around, you know, telling
• 49:09
  Speaker 3: people I've got the most important jobs. There are jobs
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: that are more important. You know, you don't see teachers
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: going around saying their jobs are important. And I have
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: no idea why journalism.
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Neither one of us is Lester Holt. You know what
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: I'm saying? Let's be realistic.
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: But I do think that the way I rationalize it
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: basically is that, you know, putting the story out there
• 49:30
  Speaker 3: and being able to gain access to these worlds and
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: showing why this is happening is I'm hoping that then
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: we are holding power accountable. We're telling those people in
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: power that this is happening and trying to change the
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: system because at the end of the day, for me,
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: it's not so much that people are broken. It's that
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: the systems are broken, the systems that allow these things
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: to happen. Whether we talk about immigration or we've reported
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: on fake pharmaceuticals and how The Mexican cartel and groups
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: in India are making these really dangerous, deadly pharmaceuticals that Americans,
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: like 20 million Americans, cannot afford medication, their own medication,
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: that they need, life-saving medication sometimes. And so they're having
• 50:11
  Speaker 3: to resort to online pharmacies in India or going down
• 50:14
  Speaker 3: to Mexico to these border pharmacies. And a lot of
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: times that stuff is deadly and tainted with other drugs
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: and other chemicals. And what does that tell me? It
• 50:21
  Speaker 3: doesn't tell me. It tells me that people are exploiting
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: a broken system. And it's our responsibility and our government
• 50:27
  Speaker 3: that has allowed this to happen. Why is it that
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: 20 million Americans can't afford life-saving treatment, right? What does
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: that say about us more than what does it say
• 50:35
  Speaker 3: about the guy in India who's making these drugs?
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It's wild that most people are afraid of getting
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: sick nowadays. Just because they're like, I don't know if
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: I want to go through all the bulls, the stress
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: of even trying to get better with this system. It's
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: almost like it tries to kill you while you're just
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: trying to get some basic medicine, you know? It's heartbreaking, man.
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: It's heartbreaking. Over your 20 years, you know, kind of
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: investigating the dark arts, if you will, you know, have
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: you noticed things getting, do you think better? And I
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: know that's a big, kind of blanket term, or have
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: you noticed things getting not better?
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: Not better.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: Not better?
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: Not better. So most people don't know this, but 38%
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: of our global economy are these gray and black markets.
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: It's what economists call the hidden third.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: Wait, what are you saying?
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: That almost 38% of the global economy are these black
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: and gray markets.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: 38% of the global economy of the GDP of Earth?
• 51:36
  Speaker 3: So the drug trade alone is estimated at between $ 6
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: to $ 800 billion. That's more than many GDPs put together.
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: Scams last year alone, they went up, I think it
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: was $ 12. 5 billion were scammed from Americans last year alone.
• 51:55
  Speaker 3: That industry has been growing. Every single year has been
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: doubling and doubling.
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: Well, let's look at this first one for a second.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: So when you say that drug trade... Mm-hmm.
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, the drug trade.
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: What percentage of the global economy are gray or black markets?
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: Black markets. Shadow economy. Estimates commonly suggest the black market
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: accounts for around 22% to 23% of global GDP. In
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: developed countries, the black market typically constitutes about 10% to 15%. Right.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Are you kidding me?
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: So this is just black markets. Gray markets are things
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: that aren't necessarily illegal but are unregulated and untaxed. So
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: things like selling fruit on the streets or clothes or
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: things that aren't regulated or taxed.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: Okay. Do you think that that's a little bit more
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: the gray market is more like, somebody trying to make
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: ends meet than it is somebody taking advantage of somebody?
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: What would you say?
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of it is just people trying
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: to make ends meet. And a part of it is
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: people trying to stay still on this side of the law.
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: But that is not achievable for everybody. Not everybody can
• 52:51
  Speaker 3: do that. One of the first episodes we ever did
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: for Traffic was about cocaine. And we went, we were
• 52:57
  Speaker 3: in Peru, we were in Colombia, and we basically saw
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: what it means for a kilo of cocaine to go
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: where it's made. We went to the jungles of Peru.
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: We saw how it's being made in these big pits
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: with the coca leaves.
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: How does it start? Take me through it a little bit.
• 53:09
  Speaker 3: Oh, it's fascinating. It's actually super fascinating.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: I will like you here. I want to hear about it.
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: Yeah. You've got the jungles of Peru, the coca leaves.
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: They harvest the leaves. And you can see fields and
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: fields of coca leaves that have existed for decades in
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: this area of Peru. It's the Vreem Valley of Peru.
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: And it's sort of.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Play some soft music too, Nick, if you don't mind.
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: Sorry.
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: I've had a little enjoy cocaine in my life, but...
• 53:34
  Speaker 1: But no, okay, go on. In Peru.
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: I've never actually tried it. Yeah, I was going to
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: ask you that in a second. I've been offered it
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: so many times.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: I bet.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: By like the purest of cocaine traffickers.
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: You got to at least.
• 53:46
  Speaker 3: So this is then they dry the leaves and then
• 53:48
  Speaker 3: they put them in a big pit. So we went
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: in the middle of the night. We're going down this
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: sort of. trail in the middle of the night. It's
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: super muddy. It's sort of rainforesty, raining all the time.
• 53:59
  Speaker 3: And I'll never forget where it's dark and we're carrying,
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: all of us are carrying, we're like six of us
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: carrying equipment, plus the guys that are taking us to
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: the place where they're making cocaine. And my DP, who's French,
• 54:12
  Speaker 3: he was with his very French accent complaining. He's like, oh,
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: I can't.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: What do I do? I can't.
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: And complaining that he's like, we're slipping and sliding everywhere. Meanwhile,
• 54:22
  Speaker 3: holding these like very expensive cameras and canvas bags full
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: of gear. And we thought it was going to be,
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: you know, like we'll be there in five minutes, 10 minutes.
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: And 45 minutes later, we're still walking down this rainy
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: path in the middle of the night with nothing, no
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: light at all.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we're such Americans. We're like, oh, we'll just park
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: and then walk right over there.
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: That's what we thought was going to happen. We'll get
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: the closest parking.
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: Spot and we'll just walk.
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: And meanwhile, yeah, and then there's no light. And I
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: basically have, as I have now, the phone with my,
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: at the time was another photo of me and my son.
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: And this, oh, and they told us we can't use flashlights,
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: even though we had flashlights with us because they didn't
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: want people around the valley to see this because what
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: they were doing was they could get them killed. And
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: so where I'm only using the light from the front
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: of my phone to sort of just see where I
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: was walking. You know, I'm covered in mud. We get
• 55:12
  Speaker 3: there and there's this pit, enormous pit. It's like an
• 55:15
  Speaker 3: Olympic-sized pool pit with all the drugs, all the cocaine
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: leaves being mixed with products that then they, once it
• 55:24
  Speaker 3: stays like this for days, and then they sort of
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: bring it out into these vats. And they mix it
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: with everything from gasoline and dye and all these products
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: that eventually get made into this powder. And so we
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: are literally seeing the whole process. And as this is happening,
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: we start hearing noises.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: And that's the moment that we knew. They were like, okay.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: So as long as it took us to come down
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: that valley, it took us about half that time to
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: go up because we were running out.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I even look at a bag of cocaine, I
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: start hearing shit, you know. So I feel you there.
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: I definitely. Anyway, carry on.
• 56:03
  Speaker 3: You could actually.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: Was there a gift shop?
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: You could smell it.
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah.
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: In the air, you could kind of smell it.
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: You could smell the petrol. You could smell the whole thing.
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: And a bunch of us were worried that we were
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: going to get sick. I've been in fentanyl labs and
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: that's even worse because there you can actually feel your
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: body starting to like warm up. The like physical, we
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: were in an enclosed fentanyl lab in Sinaloa, Mexico, where
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: the chemists, we're all, we're actually using like hazmat suits
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: and masks because we're an American group. Meanwhile, these guys
• 56:32
  Speaker 3: have like, you know, like a bandana around their face
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: and they're touching the powder. And he's telling me, I
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: was like, how do you know when it's ready? And
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: he's saying, because I can feel it. My heart starts
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: beating really fast. And that's when I know the fentanyl
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: is ready. It's insane. You should watch that.
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: That's crazy. And that was last season?
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: That was actually season one. We did a first season
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: of fentanyl. But then, just to finish the cocaine, because
• 56:56
  Speaker 3: it's so fascinating how it gets out of this valley,
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: this region. We then spent the night with these kids, 16,
• 57:02
  Speaker 3: 17-year-old kids who are backpacking and taking these 20, 30
• 57:08
  Speaker 3: pounds of cocaine or 20-something kilos of cocaine on their
• 57:11
  Speaker 3: backs for days on end, for a whole week in
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: the middle of, you know, really rough terrain, seeing some
• 57:18
  Speaker 3: of their friends being killed in front of them by
• 57:20
  Speaker 3: rival groups. One of the ones I interviewed, I will
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: never forget this interview, it's sort of very much changed
• 57:26
  Speaker 3: the show, this interview that I did with him. It
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: was the second episode we ever did of Trafficked. And
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: it was, I'm talking to this kid, and I'm asking, like,
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: why do you do this? I mean, you've seen friends
• 57:38
  Speaker 3: being killed. It's back-breaking work. You know, they get insects
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: all over. They're sleeping out in the open for days.
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: It's just horrible, terrible conditions. And he's saying, look, I've
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: always wanted to go to college, and I want to
• 57:50
  Speaker 3: be a dentist. And my family is super, super poor,
• 57:52
  Speaker 3: and they're never going to be able to afford anything.
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: um my education and so this is the only job
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: that's afforded to me i do this once a month
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: and i get x amount of money and i'm saving
• 58:01
  Speaker 3: that money to one day become a dentist i thought
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: and dentist is an interesting why dentist right you hear
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: lawyer you hear doctor you don't hear dentist and he
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: says because there's a lot of ads for dentists in
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: my town and they all show people the big smile
• 58:12
  Speaker 3: and i want to make people smile and i want
• 58:14
  Speaker 3: to make them happy oh and so it's stories like
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: this and i seriously started hearing more and more stories
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: like this that was like okay I think this is
• 58:21
  Speaker 3: the message of the show. Yes, it's a dangerous world.
• 58:24
  Speaker 3: We should be careful where we should explain and, you know,
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: shine a light in these underworlds. But ultimately, I think
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: the message of the show is to show is that
• 58:33
  Speaker 3: this could happen to any of us. You know, if
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: we depending on where you were born, you know, it's
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: like the wheel of history turns and where and when
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: you're born determines whether you get lifted or crushed by it.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: And that's the idea, I think, behind behind the show
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: and so much of what I've learned.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: Gotta let you know, today's episode is sponsored by Acorns. Acorns.
• 58:56
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  Speaker 1: not have as much time for anymore, though, is handling
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  Speaker 1: at liquidiv.com. I think you're right. I think, you know,
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: it's like you could look at it as like, what's
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: it called when you take advantage of something?
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: Exploiting?
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: Right, but I think... you have to shine a light
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: on something that people can't even see it, you know?
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: So I don't think it would be, if people are like,
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: you're exploiting, I'm like, good, someone has to go exploit
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: these things just to give us an idea. I think
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: it's where, even when I was a child, or a teenager,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: it's where you got ideas, like you would see certain
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: documentaries or things that would make you want to join
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: Amnesty International or different groups that could have a voice
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: that made you ever even think about having a voice,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: you know? So yeah, I think that the positive far
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: outweighs The risk of any negative. And you must have
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: decided that a long time ago or you wouldn't have
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: kept going.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think so. Yeah. I like to think that
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: there's some good that is being done in just raising
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: awareness to all of this. But it does feel bad sometimes.
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: It just, yeah, it feels wrong. Like it's a day
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: trip in somebody's nightmare, essentially.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. It would be so hard to leave. Have
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: you ever kept in contact with people from some of
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: these experiences?
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: So many of them. Yeah, I've kept in contact with
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 3: so many. Yeah. You know, one of the first stories
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: I ever did for an American organization, a media company,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: it was for Current TV. Do you remember Al Gore's
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: TV station?
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah, I remember Current TV. Oh, my God, dude.
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: I was with... My buddy Ezra yesterday, and he used to,
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 1: Ezra Cooperstein?
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, of course.
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: You know him?
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: Of course.
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: No way.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: Of course I know Ezra, yeah.
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 1: Bring up Ezra, man. I love Ezra.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: Oh, you know Ezra from the podcasting world.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 1: Of course. Yeah, Ezra and I just went to, Ezra's great.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: I'm working with him right now.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: Are you really?
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: I'm starting my own podcast.
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: Are you?
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: The Hidden Third.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: Congratulations.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's with Ezra.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: I love Ezra. He's got a big heart. He's a
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: neat guy.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: Oh, he's great. He's awesome. Yeah, I've known him since
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: the current TV days.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: That's so funny. I didn't know until yesterday that he'd
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: ever worked at Current TV. Yeah. We were in San Francisco.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: Did you know it?
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: For an interview, and he didn't know. He just said,
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: you know, I used to live around here. I used
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: to work with Al Gore. I was like, oh, cool.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: Do you remember that company at all, though?
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: I remember hearing about Current TV. Do you remember it, Nick?
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: Oh, Nick, just say yes. I do remember it.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: I remember it.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: What do you remember about it, Zach?
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: Thanks, Zach.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: I'm kind of an outlier. I was really tapped into
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: political stuff, so I was paying attention.
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: I was at like 13 paying attention to that. Anyway,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 3: it was great. It was basically, it was a little
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: bit of YouTube before YouTube. It was like, the idea
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: was that cameras were getting so cheap and easy to
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: use that they were going to empower young people to
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 3: get out there and film and edit. So essentially they
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: gave me, they offered me money to go around the
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 3: world with my husband at the time when we started
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: with my boyfriend became my husband and we would travel
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: and did You know, the war in Sri Lanka, the
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: Lebanese-Hezbollah war. That actually was our honeymoon was covering that war.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: So we travel all around the world doing these amazing
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: stories together, and we do everything. We'd film, we'd edit
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: the whole package, and then just deliver it to Current TV,
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 3: and they'd give us X amount of money per minute
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: of product of TV delivered. And the first story I
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: ever did for Current TV was, When I was still
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: trying to convince them to hire me, it was a
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: story about the death train. I'm sure you've heard of it.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 3: It's the train— In Indonesia, you mean? No, it was
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: in Mexico. So it's the train that carries undocumented immigrants
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: from southern Mexico to northern Mexico to the border with
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 3: the United States. So it used to be— yeah, exactly. So
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: it's a cargo plane, and people— It's not Amtrak, is it? No,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 3: it's just a cargo train that carries everything from— Oh, OK.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: So it brings all kinds of stuff. Oh, yeah. Is
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: this the train that every couple of years is on
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: the political kickball?
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It's not it doesn't operate this way anymore. Thank God,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: because it actually is responsible for lots of deaths and amputations.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: But we were there at the peak of when this
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: was operating. And it was like that. You see the
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: hundreds of people on the top. They were packed on top.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: with no safety measures, obviously, they're on top of a cargo.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: Sometimes they were holding on to the sides of it,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: and they would go for days and days on end
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: just to get to this northern border where they could
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: cross into the United States in the sun. And one
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 3: of the kids we met when we first got to
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: this town, Tapachula, which is right on the border with
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: Mexico and Guatemala, was a kid who was in a clinic,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: and he had lost an arm. He'd been amputated, lost
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: an arm to the train. He tried the train. He
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: fell off the train. You know, it went right over
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: his arm. He lost his arm. Three days later, we
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: have convinced the guy that sort of runs the train,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: this part of the train, the railroad. We convinced him
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: to let us go, me and my then boyfriend, who
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: became my husband, Darren, to get on top of the
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 3: train and do a certain amount of time. I think
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 3: we did like almost a day or half a day
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: or something. on the train so we could see just
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 3: how difficult and dangerous it is. And we could film
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: with the characters we were following because we were following
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: a group of women from Guatemala that left their homeland
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: to try and reach the U.S. and provide a better
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: life for their families. And we're on top of the train. No,
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: and we're heading towards the train to get on top
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: of the train. And who do we see but Guillermo,
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: the guy, the kid, Guatemalan kid who had lost his
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: arm who's going to try that journey again.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: And there he was. And we then introduced him to Maria,
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: who was the woman we were filming. And they traveled
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: the whole way together. And eventually, Guillermo actually didn't make
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: it across one more time. He was detained on the border.
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: And two years later, and we kept in touch. And
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: two years later, he was still texting me and saying
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: that he was still trying to make it across. And so, yeah,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: I stay in touch with a lot of these people
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: that I report on.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: Gosh. Yeah. What inside of you makes it be able
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: to handle this type of stuff? Have you thought about
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: that over the years? Because I think that it's interesting,
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: you know, like sometimes even as viewers of things, it's
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 1: hard for us to take on. It's hard to make
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: it through certain moments of your stories to listen, you know,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: even compassionately. It's tough. You know, it's tough on our hearts.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: What do you think that is that's important? gives you
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: that ability or resilience or, I don't know.
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: Coldness.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: Is that what you're trying to say?
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: No, it wasn't really. No, I don't think it is
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: a coldness. I think of it as.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: A, I don't think it's a coldness either. I do.
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: I think it's a couple of things.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: I think it's like, I'm genuinely like, yeah. How were
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: you able to do it? Right. And do you think
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: that there's, cause some people, We have to hear about things.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: So like some people have to have a gift. Like
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: if you told the messenger something and he couldn't hear
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: it and his heart stopped, then no one would get
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: the message, right? So there has to be a reason
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: that the messenger's heart is built a certain way. So
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: I think that's what I'm asking probably.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I like that. I think that a few things.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 3: I think curiosity. I've always been incredibly curious. I decided
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 3: I wanted to be a journalist when I was 12
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 3: years old mainly because I had watched– anchors on television
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 3: talking about the whole world. And I was like, these
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: are the most intelligent people. You know, I didn't know
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: they were reading from teleprompters. I just thought their ability
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: of retaining information was out of this world. I was like, okay,
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: that's what I want to do. I want to retain
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 3: this amount of information as well. So I think I've
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: always been curious and wanted to know about the world.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 3: I've always loved traveling. I've always felt comfortable. I think
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: part of growing up in Portugal, small country, loving to
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 3: travel and go out. I think very much explorer blood.
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: You know, we have a whole history, a big history
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 3: in Portugal with the explorers exploring the world. And I
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: think that's very much in my veins and my blood.
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 3: I think I'm very, I don't think, my parents were
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 3: never worried or scared of the world around me. They
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: were never the kind of parents that would say, don't
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 3: do this because it's dangerous. They weren't helicopter parents. They
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 3: never were. And I think that just allowed me to
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 3: have a look around the world and not see danger
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: and look around the world and see opportunity and excitement.
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: I think that's a big thing. I've tried to raise
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 3: my son the same way, you know, because there are
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: those parents that everything. Oh, don't watch out. Don't go.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: Don't climb that tree. Don't watch out for those steps. Yeah.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: Everything.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: And I think you're passing on that sort of anxiety
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: to your kids. So my parents were never like that.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: You know, I moved. I moved to the West to study,
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 3: but then I moved to the Middle East. The war
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: in Iraq was happening. I moved to the Middle East
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: and I started my career doing this crazy job. And
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: never once have they told me. Be careful. Of course,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: they worry about me and they love me, I hope,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: but they won't never tell me not to do it.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 3: They support me and trust me, I think, which is
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: very important. And then I think I'm really good at
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: compartmentalizing things in my life in general. I can be
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 3: with you right now and really enjoy this experience. I mean,
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 3: maybe this is not a good example because we haven't,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: but I can be with my friends in Portugal that
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: I love and adore and have been my friend since
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: I was five years old. And I love every second
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: and I think I'm going to die when I leave them.
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: And then I'm somewhere else and I am there, you know,
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: and I'm there. And I think that's helped me in
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: the work that I do.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. I think you would have to be able
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: to do those things. That's pretty fascinating. What a neat
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: ensemble of life you've gotten to experience.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm very lucky.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: You have an episode in Traffic this season about– About
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: rehab scams. Yeah. How did you get into that and
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: what did you learn? Yeah.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: You know, I've been covering the opiate crisis for a
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: long time and the drug business as well. And just seeing,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: you know, talking to people that have gone to rehab
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: as well. And lots of times I heard horror stories.
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 3: And so this season, we decided to really try to
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: investigate what was happening. And we started our reporting in Arizona,
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 3: where basically there are all these sort of rehab clinics
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 3: that are there to exploit Native Americans, mainly Native Americans,
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: because I know it's really horrible. Native Americans get access
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: to health care much easier than the non-Native Americans in
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: the state. It was something that started during COVID where
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 3: you can just basically call the health department and say,
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 3: you know, this is my name, this is my Native
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 3: American ID number. And they will give you insurance just
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: like that. It was to make it easier for them.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 3: But what has happened because of it is that now
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 3: they're seen as targets, as prizes for these black market
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: rehab operators that set up these clinics. They basically go
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: to reservations. It's insane. They go around these reservations. telling,
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: convincing people that have problems with drugs or alcohol to
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: come into their vans. It's these white vans. And so
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: it's a little, I've heard about the white vans for
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: many years, and you always think it's sort of a myth, right?
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: But it turns out that actually in Arizona, it's not
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: a myth.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: Well, it's a very rehab thing too, the white van.
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: Usually if there's a detox center or if there's a
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: halfway house. They usually come in a white van. So
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: it's very typical to see that in that community.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: So that's exactly it. So they go in these white vans.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 3: They convince people. Sometimes they tell them we're just going
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 3: to go for a ride. This is what I heard.
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 3: But the majority of times they tell them, look, we're
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 3: going to offer you free treatment, free housing, free food.
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: Just come with us. And then they place them in
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 3: these houses, but they don't act. They offer them free housing,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: but they don't actually offer them any treatment. Or if
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: they do, it's shit treatment. And they're charging insurance insane
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 3: amounts of money for bogus treatment. And a lot of
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: times these are desperate people that really do need that treatment.
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: And instead, you know, they're being lied to and exploited
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 3: and just horrible, horrible conditions. The state, I think it
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 3: was $ 3 billion or something. Don't quote me because I
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 3: can't remember exactly. But it was billions of dollars that
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: the state of Arizona lost to these rehab scams in
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: the last few years alone.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: Why would they, why would they, the people stay there,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: I guess would be my question.
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 3: Because they had, a lot of times they were actually
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: given drugs. And this is happening after Arizona, we came
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 3: to California as well, where they're exploiting not only Native Americans,
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: but anyone, people from all walks of life. And they're
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: actually going to states like Alaska and Oklahoma, all around
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: the country and bringing people to these rehab scams facilities
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 3: in California. This is where multiple state sources and news outlets.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: Has totaled approximately $ 2. 8 billion for the state of Arizona.
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: That's unbelievable. I said three. Yeah, that's $ 2. 8. Yeah.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: The scams primarily exploited loopholes in Arizona Medicaid system, especially
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: the American Indian Health Program, billing for services that were
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: often never provided or for patients who were not even
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: in the facilities. Were the patients also part of the scams?
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 3: So a lot of times they're actually given alcohol and
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: drugs to stay there. Or a lot of times these
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: are people whose families, they've suffered from addiction. The families
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: might not want them or they don't have means to
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 3: go back and they decide to stay because here they
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: have a free house, free meals, and sometimes even free
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: drugs and alcohol. So they stay. But what they don't
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: know or what is happening behind that sometimes they don't
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: know is that they are They're sort of a prize.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 3: They're being exploited and they're making millions of dollars off
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: the fact of having them in these facilities. And this
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: is happening again in California as well.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 1: Did you find out who are the solicitors of this?
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: Is solicitors the right word?
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, or the owners of these clinics.
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, who is the proprietors of this?
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: Who are the people? We actually interviewed, I mean, in
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: Arizona when they figured out that the state started cracking
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: down on these rehab facilities, they closed hundreds and hundreds
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 3: of these clinics that they realized were pure Medicaid scams.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: And a few of them were still operating. One, which
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: was sort of the bad one that we kept on
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: hearing about, was still operating. So we showed up at
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 3: a Ramada Inn, like a decommissioned Ramada Inn.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. Been there.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Decommissioned. And where hundreds of people were being held
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: or not held, but they were housed. And we were
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: told that that place, the Arizona, the government, Department of
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: Health of Arizona had told them. had sent them a
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: cease and desist. I told them they should not, they
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 3: could not operate because they were running a scam, a
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 3: Medicaid scam. And meanwhile, a few months later, we show
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 3: up and we're outside with our cameras in hiding in
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: our own vans. And we see van, white van after
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 3: white van in the front with people being taken into
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: the vans and then being driven to this treatment center
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 3: where then the That afternoon, I was able to talk
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: to somebody who went into the treatment center. I saw
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: that a bunch of people were leaving the motel, and
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 3: I just went up to one, started talking to him.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: And he said, yeah, I mean, it was hundreds of
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 3: people inside this sort of classroom, and no one is
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: actually getting treatment. But they are charging, you know, sometimes
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 3: up to like $ 10, 000 a person for treatment that they
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 3: are not receiving and they desperately need. And that $ 10, 000
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 3: goes straight into the pockets of these owners.
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: CEO of Tempe Rehab absolutely denies allegations of medical fraud, right?
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 1: So this is a place that these are.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 3: This is the one that was running the facility from
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: that decommissioned.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: These are accusations. I want to let you know that's allegedly.
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 1: We finally caught up with Newfoundhouse owner to see what
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: he had to say while at the Arizona Office of
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: Administrative Hearings.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: We interviewed him, Dennis Artelis. And he denied that his
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 3: facility was operating the day that we saw all those
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: vans full of people taking people. We had recorded evidence
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 3: of this and he denied it.
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, so we did not know that it was operating.
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 3: That it was operating.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: You're saying you have evidence that it was operating.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: That's right. I mean, we saw it. We filmed it. Yeah.
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 3: That's an amazing... Dinis Artelis? Yeah.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: He's Latino or no? He's Latino?
• 1:18:23
  Speaker 3: Maybe. I can't remember exactly. I know that we spoke
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 3: to his sister-in-law. who was working, she was the one
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: responsible for the billing in his company. And she basically
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 3: became a whistleblower and told us everything, how he was
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 3: double billing for people, how he was billing for people
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: that weren't even there. So he's getting that. He was
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 3: making 850 million dollars or his company facility 850 million
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 3: dollars a month she showed us the billing.
• 1:18:49
  Speaker 1: That's disgusting show of another picture of you can't it's
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: the only photo of him you can get.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah he's quite he doesn't like the limelight of.
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: Course he doesn't that's why i want to make sure
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: we get a good one of them because the problem
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: with is a lot of criminals they don't get ever
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: get shown until people don't know who they are we
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: have a guy who allegedly stole a bunch of money
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: from us a few years ago what was that guy's
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: name Colin Thompson. I'm going to put a picture of
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: him up right now just to remind everybody that he's never.
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 3: What did he do?
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 1: He got paid from advertisers and never paid our podcast
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 1: and others.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: Oh, no.
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: There he is right there. Well, missing, defrauded of that
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: I know of me and my friends is up to
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: like four million dollars.
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: No way. What is he doing right now? Do you know?
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but I'm glad that I don't have
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: to be involved with him anymore.
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: And did you know him personally?
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought we I thought I did. I thought
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: I did, but he just, he was, according to me,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: and this is just allegedly, the guy was a complete thief,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: piece of shit. But I just heard, I'm not saying
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: I heard, the only reason I know that is because
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: I said it. I'm not saying anybody else has ever
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 1: said that. Wow, hiding his picture from the internet. So
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 1: you know he must have himself scrubbed off the internet.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: Just zoom in on his face a little bit. I
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 1: just want to get a gander at him.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 3: There's a video too.
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: There is?
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 3: Of him being interviewed, yeah.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: That's the scary thing about the world. And I think
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: one of the tough things is, who do you feel
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: like should come? Like we find so many dark circles
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: and like pools of existence, right? And because it's weird
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: as a human, you start to think, okay, well, I'm
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: part of a neighborhood, my neighborhood helper, a family, right?
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: Or a government, right? Or a country. You think these things,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: what have you surmised over time? What's going to come
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: to our rescue? Do we need Faith, do we need teamwork?
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: Is it all different for everything? What do you think?
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: I think we need a government that works, which is
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: all these people are doing, they're exploiting broken systems. So
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 3: for this story, we interviewed the investigator, the fraud investigator
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 3: for the Department of Health, California's Department of Health, and
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: he was saying how there are thousands of these rehab
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 3: clinics in California, and he estimated about 10% of them
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: are fraudulent.
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 3: And so my question, that made me angry. I mean,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 3: I'm angry for these guys who exploit the system and
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 3: who are basically, you know, exploiting the most vulnerable people
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 3: out there. But I'm mostly angry for our government. You know,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 3: these are the people that are responsible to make sure
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 3: that those people aren't victimized again.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 3: And who are making sure that these people are getting
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: the treatment that they need. And that is just not happening.
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: So I told him, like, I'm angry at them, but
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: I'm mainly angry at not you personally, the fraud investigator,
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: but at the government and the department that you work for.
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 3: And why isn't that more hasn't been done to prevent
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: this from happening? So I think it's the systems.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: And what did he say?
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 3: He says he understands that. Right. And he wishes they
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 3: had more resources. Nowadays, you can, and he told me, like,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 3: you are found with a kilo of cocaine, you go
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 3: to prison. You are found making millions of dollars on
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: the back of vulnerable people, telling them or telling the government,
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 3: telling the insurance company that you're providing treatment they are
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 3: not providing. You don't do a day in jail. And
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 3: so they're just doing, you know, exploiting a broken system
• 1:22:09
  Speaker 3: is what I keep saying.
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: I know. And that's what I think is the biggest realization,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: I think, especially in the past year or two, is
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: that none of it doesn't feel like our government's here
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: to help us anymore. And that gets kind of scary
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: because then it almost feels like it's up to us.
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: But then it also feels kind of inspiring because the
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 1: truth is that it's always kind of been up to us,
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: So but at least we still hopefully have ourselves to
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: count on, you know.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: I'm curious about kind of pivoting for a second. But
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: I'm curious about what type of people will be on
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: your podcast. That would be so fascinating.
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 3: Mainly I want people who have some sort of understanding
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 3: or have experienced the life of crime, which is not
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 3: necessarily you, but I think you offer other interesting knowledge.
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: I mean, and you've talked a lot about your past addiction.
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been involved in illegal drug use. I've been
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: involved in... like S sex, getting, hiring prostitutes or paying stripper,
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: that type of stuff. I don't know if that's, I mean,
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: everybody wanted to do it or everybody was having a
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: good time, I think. Yes, everybody's having a good time.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: But I'm trying to think of what other crime I've done.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: I mean, I hit a guy with a vehicle once.
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 1: He's fine. He's fine.
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: It wasn't on purpose? It was on purpose?
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no. Yeah, so it was accidental non-homicide
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 1: or whatever it's called. I'll give you, I'll give you,
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: he wasn't that great before I hit him. I'll be
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 1: honest with you. And he was stoned. It was after
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: a concert and he just, but he's fine. He's doing great.
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: Still text. Seems good.
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 2: Good.
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: Good. Hope you're doing good, Henry. I, uh, anyway, let's
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: keep it going here. What were you going to say?
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 3: But, but, but I will give, I'll give you a truth, um,
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 3: test after, and you can tell me all the illegal
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: things you've done. And I'll say, I think that's all
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 3: of them.
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: I think that's all of them.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: That's pretty good. Um, as in not a lot. Um,
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 3: I think we'll have a lot of people who are still,
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 3: you know, because I've reported on this for so many years,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 3: I have a Rolodex of really interesting contacts.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 3: I think a lot of the people that will come
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 3: on the podcast will still be wearing a mask so
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 3: that they can talk freely about what they do. But
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 3: for me, it's another avenue in another format to get
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 3: people into this, you know, again, the hidden third of
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 3: the world that no one knows much about. Yeah. That's
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 3: the idea.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's cool. Well, especially since so much of the,
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, that black and gray market you said, that's
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: 22% of American GDP?
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 3: That's just the black market. And I think, you know,
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 3: the gray market is where it gets more. But I can't,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 3: was it just American GDP? I know that drugs alone,
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 3: in America alone, is $ 150 billion a year. And that's
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 3: just drugs.
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: And does that include just people selling dealers on the streets?
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 1: When you say the black market, is that like a
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 1: website or is that like the dark web?
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 3: No, no, no. By black market, I mean it's a market.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 3: So it's the market for illegal drugs in the United States.
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: Can you open that up, Nick? Thank you.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the one.
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, estimates commonly suggest that the black market accounts are
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: around 22% to 23% of global GDP. And the gray
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: market income is about 8% of the global market.
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 3: And look at 10 trillion. The total global market is
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 3: estimated with.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: Total black market estimates.
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 3: Only rivaled by the GDP of the United States.
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: Wow. $ 10 trillion? The total black market is estimated to
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: make one of the world's largest economic forces.
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 3: It's crazy. And we have whole organizations, channels devoted to
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 3: analyzing every up and down of the legal economy, yet
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 3: there is nothing out there. If you do, you know,
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 3: even do searches, there's like no one. we are one
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 3: of the only outlets out there that is actually, you know,
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 3: gaining access to these worlds, investigating, showing people, you know,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 3: peek behind the curtain of how they operate. And yeah.
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 3: So I, that's where the idea of the podcast came.
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 3: I have all these contacts and. Yeah.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: Well, it's just fascinating to think, say, if you look
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: at another world, say you're standing on a mountain, looking
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: down at a, at the world. If you think that
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: 20% of it is a black market, that's unbelievable because
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: it starts to make you think, well, this, Is there
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: a baby in that baby carriage? What's going on here?
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: Who's moving that? Is that what's really in that truck
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: that's going down the street?
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: And do you think those are fear numbers? Do you
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: think that that's real?
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's real. Oh, I think that was probably underestimates it, actually.
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 3: I think absolutely that's real. I mean, I've seen it
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 3: all around. I mean, like I said, it's it's your neighbor.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 3: It's happening down the street. So many of the work
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 3: and the filming that we do actually happens in the
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 3: places that you least expect in broad daylight. In like,
• 1:26:43
  Speaker 3: you know, it's not the dark places. tunnels it's like
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 3: in open lit warehouses and you know the neighbor's house
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 3: in the backyard we we one of the stories we
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 3: did for another season was ghost guns do you know
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 3: about ghost guns ghost ghost guns so it's readily ghost guns.
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: Crazy i thought it was like um i thought it
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 1: was british people that are like you know spiritual british
• 1:27:04
  Speaker 1: or whatever Anyway, sorry. I'm sorry to say that word,
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: but I thought that I was like, what is she saying?
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: Ghost guns?
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 3: Do you know, by the way, when I moved to
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 3: the U.S., I spent some time in the U.K. and
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 3: I didn't, they use the word a lot, but they don't,
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 3: it's a whole new level in the U.S.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but they use it all the time.
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they use it all the time. So when I
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 3: first moved here, one of the things that I used
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 3: to say is that the rule number one, which I
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 3: learned in the U.K. by an English journalist who was
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 3: my boss at the time, and he taught me a
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 3: lesson in journalism, which is rule number one in journalism
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 3: is you don't work with cops. And so I went
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 3: around telling people this all the time and not realizing
• 1:27:38
  Speaker 3: that people were like shocked.
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: All the lesbians are like, whoa, hold on.
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 3: And here I am repeating it.
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, I remember I was in London and the guy's like,
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: it was some guy with his kids. He's like, yeah,
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: he's a Matuka. right here. And I'm like, no, this is,
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: what are we talking? This is fucking, somebody needs to
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 1: do an expose on this family. Okay. What were we
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: just talking about?
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 3: Going back.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: Oh, so the podcast. So that's what it's going to
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: be is a lot of that. Well, especially since it's
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: such a big part of the world, I think it
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: is fascinating. I think it is fascinating to see also
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 1: who's gotten busted for things when really those things were
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: out of necessity. And though they were crimes, they were
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: probably like more like white, like, yeah, like, You know,
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: nonviolent crimes, you know? And what is that like?
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: And the choices people had to make. That's all pretty fascinating.
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, good. I'm happy you think that.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: She just brought ghost guns. Oh, yeah.
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 3: Oh, ghost guns.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:28:33
  Speaker 1: Ghost guns. That's what you talked about. Yeah.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 3: Real fast. I'll just explain. So ghost guns are readily
• 1:28:37
  Speaker 3: available or, you know, yeah. firearms that you can assemble
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: with over-the-counter components or 3D printed parts or all of
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 3: them together. They don't have a serialized number. They don't
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 3: have a serial number, which is the ID of any gun.
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 3: And sometimes they have fake serial numbers. In our cartels USA,
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 3: we interviewed a guy who basically goes around the country
• 1:28:57
  Speaker 3: selling guns to the cartel. and to, you know, gangs
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 3: and whatnot. And he makes his guns himself, they're ghost guns,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 3: and he actually prints fake serial numbers on the guns
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 3: to make them look more legit. So if you're stopped,
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 3: you have a license to own a gun, you have
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 3: a gun, you show a serial number, at first glance,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: that's totally legal. But if you investigate further and you
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 3: actually put the number of the serial gun in the system,
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 3: you realize that actually that is a ghost gun and
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 3: it's not legal.
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: So somebody's just making them.
• 1:29:27
  Speaker 3: So somebody's making them, and they're making them One of
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 3: the other places I filmed, I'm making it seem like L.A.
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 3: is the center of everything. It really isn't. This is
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 3: happening all around L.A., all around the country. But we
• 1:29:38
  Speaker 3: actually filmed in a guy's backyard in L.A. where these
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 3: guys had an operation. They were making ghost guns. They
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 3: were assembling them with 3D printed parts and parts that
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 3: they bought online. They were assembling these AR-15s and these pistols.
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 3: And then we saw, we were there when a buyer came.
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 3: And the guy comes and we had told him that
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 3: we were filming and he was okay with wearing a
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 3: mask and being filmed making that purchase. And he's a
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 3: gang member. And he comes in and he buys a
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 3: gun and then he gets mad at our cameraman for
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 3: some reason because he thinks our cameraman is smirking. He's
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 3: like filming like this, you know, making a face and
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: he thinks he's smirking.
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, like that. You have to do that.
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 3: And he starts being like, what the fuck? Are you smiling?
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 3: Are you fucking making fun of me and threatening him?
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 3: And he had just purchased this gun and things turned
• 1:30:24
  Speaker 3: Really dangerous, really fast and sketchy. And then we found
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 3: out the day after that he went that day and
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 3: he shot a woman with that same gun that he
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 3: had just purchased in that backyard. So this to say
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 3: that it's everywhere. It's like that black market, these illegal markets,
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 3: whether it's guns or drugs or scams or whatnot, they're
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 3: all around us.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Especially when you have people 3D printing guns. It's
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 1: like Legos of guns now. It's like, oh, look, I
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: got this cool new Lego kit. I'm building an AR
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: or whatever. It's like, what is happening?
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, what is happening? It's craziness.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: You have one part I want to ask before you
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: leave about militias in this new season. I would like
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: to be part of a militia one day. So I
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: want to say that out loud. And, and I think,
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: cause I, I believe I'm, I'm like the revolution guy.
• 1:31:17
  Speaker 1: I want there to be a revolution. I want to
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: be like on a horse, you know, charge, you know,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: I want to be like on a horseback or even
• 1:31:24
  Speaker 1: a pony. I'll get on a pony. It'll be fucking weird.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: And people were like, dude, hurry the fuck up. I'm like, dude,
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: it's this fucking small horse. And, but I do want
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 1: to be part of the revolution, right? I want to
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: at least try and charge the hill. before we all
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: get gunned down by Palantir, allegedly.
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: Allegedly.
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 3: You have to go back in time a little bit. Right.
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 3: We're not living in the right time.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 3: It actually might be, yes.
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. So what do you find out
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: about militias? Are they good or bad?
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 3: We don't go into a story thinking about whether they're
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 3: good or bad. However, I would say that there has
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 3: been a growth of militias in the United States, that
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 3: it can be dangerous, that we are at a time
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 3: in which we're more divided and torn apart than ever.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 3: We are seeing militias grow on both sides of the spectrum.
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 3: So not only right-wing militias, but left-wing militias too. And
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 3: they're both in answer to the other side, right? So
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 3: we filmed with a group called Patriots for America, who
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 3: are operating on the border. And basically what they are
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 3: seeing is an invasion of immigrants into America. And they
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 3: decided they were going to take matters into their own hands.
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 3: They trained, they use combat gear, they use, you know,
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 3: night vision, like top of the line, this is it,
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 3: top of the line combat gear, and they go out
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 3: there patrolling the border.
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: Yep, we are a diverse community of patriots that love
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 1: our country, okay? Yeah.
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 3: So what they say they're doing is they're just patrolling,
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 3: although they have been accused of actually detaining one of
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 3: the migrants. I asked them that. They say they don't
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 3: touch the migrants ever. They just patrol, and they're sort
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 3: of a, what do you call it, a deterring force
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 3: to prevent migrants from coming.
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: Optics.
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 3: What is interesting is that they're also operating. We saw it.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 3: They told us that they have support of a lot
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 3: of sheriff's departments in the area. And they're also helping
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 3: Border Patrol. We saw it. We were there the day
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 3: we filmed. We filmed them calling Border Patrol because they
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 3: had seen some migrants crossing. We didn't see the migrants,
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 3: but they did. And they called Border Patrol, and the
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 3: Border Patrol came, and they hitched a ride with Border Patrol.
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 3: We filmed behind as they were going to show where
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 3: the migrants were crossing into the United States.
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: They sound awesome to me, to be honest.
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 3: Okay, to you they do.
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 1: That part.
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 3: It causes all sorts of trouble, problems. So actually, well-regulated militia,
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 3: which is in fact in our Constitution, is allowed. What
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 3: is not allowed is unregulated militias. Acting and pretending as
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 3: if you are law enforcement.
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 3: Dressing up, training for combat. All that is actually not legal.
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 3: And what we decided is, you know, Sam Hall, who's
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 3: the leader of this militia, we spent a night with
• 1:34:03
  Speaker 3: him and seeing his work and You know, I'm not
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 3: saying that what they're trying to accomplish, you know, they
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 3: believe the country is being invaded. They decided that they
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 3: wanted to do. I'm a strong believer. Our government is broken,
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 3: particularly when it comes to immigration policy. But I'm a
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 3: strong believer in holding our country accountable. It's very much
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 3: part of the work that I do instead of arming
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 3: myself and training for war and going down there.
• 1:34:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that.
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 3: To scare girls, little girls and kids and women.
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: I agree with that.
• 1:34:31
  Speaker 3: I think that is horrible. Having filmed... spend time with
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 3: some of these migrants who are crossing the border, who
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 3: are victims many times of extortion, of rape, you know,
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 3: little kids who are scared to death. And then they
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 3: come across these heavily armed, uniformed guys that they think
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 3: are border patrol, that are a deterring factor, and therefore probably,
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 3: you know, whatever they do, even if they don't talk,
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 3: it's scary, right? And so I don't personally think that's
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 3: the way to go. Right. Um, I think, I think
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 3: you vote. I think you go to the ballot, you
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 3: get involved politically, and if you really want to change,
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 3: you try to change it that way.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:35:07
  Speaker 3: Has it worked? No, but is that the solution? It's not.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: I agree. It's not. I think there is part of this.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 1: I agree. It's like somebody that's coming over here that's
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: looking for a better life, that wants something different. I
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: think the border system, they left it open and broken
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 1: on purpose, I think, to create a lot almost because
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: it inspires people who believe in America. Maybe these people's
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: parents died there. protecting their country, right? And now they're thinking, well,
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: they're having people come across the border. And a lot
• 1:35:37
  Speaker 1: of them weren't even Latinos. A lot of them were
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: bad actors. A lot of them were people that came
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: here with ill intent, right? I think only 40% were
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 1: Latinos that came across the border during like this great
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: migration that's happened during like the Biden administration, right? Yeah.
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: And then also you're like, yeah, it's like.
• 1:35:58
  Speaker 3: But that doesn't mean that they're bad people.
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: No, not at all.
• 1:36:00
  Speaker 3: It doesn't.
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: But at all. I think it's really tough, though, if
• 1:36:04
  Speaker 1: you're like, if you were a person who, maybe your
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: dad served in the military, and then you start to think,
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: our government doesn't care about us anymore. Mm-hmm. Or maybe
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: someone who came across the border raped somebody in your
• 1:36:20
  Speaker 1: town or did something bad. Now all you care about
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: is protecting your own. So it's like I can just
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: see how people can start to do this sort of thing, right?
• 1:36:32
  Speaker 1: And I don't know– and I think in the end,
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: to me, it's all our government's fault. I think they
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: want the wars. They want the videos of the bull–
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 1: They want all the fucking fighting so they can keep
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 1: us arguing about this shit.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 3: They can get votes.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: So they can keep getting votes. We're going to do
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 1: it this year. They've never done it. They've never figured
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 1: it out, you know? I think immigration— Anyway, not to
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 1: get animated.
• 1:36:54
  Speaker 3: No, I get very animated about this topic.
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: It's heartbreak. It's fucked up. And they're the ones letting
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 1: us all battle this. There's a new movie called Eddington,
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: and it's really cool. It's like this sheriff in this town,
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: and he— During the COVID, during COVID, and he has to,
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: and BLM and everything, he has to deal with all
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: this stuff. And he's the sheriff. So he's like the
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: authority figure. And it's watching him lose authority over himself
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: as he, as it all falls apart. Anyway.
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 3: I get very animated. I mean, particularly with what's happening.
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 3: I don't tend to become political or to talk politics.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: It feels like it's just a joint thing. Do you
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 1: feel like it is or what do you think?
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 3: I do. I am not happy, obviously. I'm incredibly just
• 1:37:36
  Speaker 3: saddened by what's happening in our city right now. I,
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 3: having spent many years.
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: In Los Angeles, you mean?
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 3: Yes. Sorry, in my city.
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: Sorry.
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 3: Having spent many years reporting on immigration... Are there criminals
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 3: who come across? Absolutely. Are there people carrying drugs? Absolutely.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 3: Are the vast majority of people coming because they are under,
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 3: you know, there's violence in their hometowns, they're in desperate situations?
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 3: Nobody would be making that very, very few people. I've
• 1:38:02
  Speaker 3: done that journey, parts of that journey. You know, whether
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 3: it's the death train or the Darien Gap, you know,
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 3: I've been on the border right at the beginning of
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 3: the Darien Gap, which is the jungle that, you know,
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 3: a lot of people die trying to make it. And
• 1:38:14
  Speaker 3: I've seen what it takes. And I've spoken to these people.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 3: And a lot of them are mothers. And nothing moves
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 3: a mother more than trying to provide a better life
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 3: for their kids.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: For their children.
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 3: If their children are endangered, if they know that their
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 3: kids can go out on the streets and be co-opted
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 3: or killed by gangs and if they're not joining the gangs.
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 3: I would do anything. Exactly. I have a child myself
• 1:38:37
  Speaker 3: and I would do anything. And a lot of the
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 3: stories that I hear again and again, they're not. lies
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 3: they're real stories of human beings that are living under
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 3: horrible situations are trying to do everything for a better
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 3: life for themselves and their kids so i think when
• 1:38:50
  Speaker 3: we start going out on the streets of la in
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 3: these raids and you know i know personally people have
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 3: been affected by this refuse you know people have lived
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 3: there for decades and are not are afraid to leave
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 3: their house yes they weren't born in the united states
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 3: some of them came here when they were still kids
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 3: Some of them came when they were adults but have
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 3: spent the last 20, 30 years living, paying taxes, you know,
• 1:39:12
  Speaker 3: working very hard, many hours a day, and have done
• 1:39:16
  Speaker 3: nothing wrong. And being treated the way they're treated, being handcuffed,
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 3: windows smashed in cars to remove this mother with the
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 3: kid watching. These are traumatizing events. Whatever happens to that
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 3: adult person matters. This is traumatizing for herself, for the
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 3: kids that are watching. It's taking away the father of
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 3: these military members. These are horrible. It's beneath us. It's
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 3: just beneath us. I think one of the lessons that
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 3: I've been taught when I was growing up is you
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 3: should be judged by the way you treat the people
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 3: that have less power than you do and not by
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 3: the way you treat those above you, right?
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: Yep, and I think we can put that directly onto—
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: That's a great statement. You should be judged by the
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: people who have less power than you do. And that's
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: how you treat them. And that's our government. To me,
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: I don't think it's a conspiracy theory. I believe that
• 1:40:10
  Speaker 1: they knew they wanted all this. They want because they
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: want this constant battle. They want to be able to
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: have something to kickball back and forth. We'll do it.
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 1: They'll fix it. It's their fault. They Because if they
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: fix it, then they can't blame it on the other person.
• 1:40:25
  Speaker 1: And that's the problem, I think, with a lot of
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: things in this country. And I agree. It's like it's
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: heartbreaking to see families separated like that. And it makes
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: you question like, well, why do I get to be here?
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: You know, I was just born here, you know. And
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: then you look at the Native Americans like, well, fucking
• 1:40:42
  Speaker 1: they didn't. They got it.
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 3: Exactly.
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: And then who do they take it from? Aliens or somebody.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know how far back it goes, you know,
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: by mollusks or whatever. But for me, it makes me
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 1: certainly question, well, what, you know, to say this is mine,
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: you know? But at the same time, there has to
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: be like organized bookkeeping of inventory. And I don't mean,
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, all of us as inventory to make it
• 1:41:06
  Speaker 1: so that everything can make sense. And we could do
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: all that if we want. I believe that they don't
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: want to do it at the top. And I also
• 1:41:12
  Speaker 1: think that I think that we're about to enter a
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: surveillance state, right? I was talking with Sam Altman, the
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: AI guy, and I don't know if he knows or not,
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: but he believes that surveillance will be a big part
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: of things in the next few years. That's so scary.
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: But I believe why a lot of this is happening now,
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 1: and it's painful to see it happen, is because it's
• 1:41:36
  Speaker 1: all going to be under surveillance soon. So you couldn't
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: even be someone who's here that's undocumented, right? They have
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: to figure out all the paperwork now. Like, They have
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: to figure out what's in the shelves of our, what's
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: on the human shelves of our country. So I believe
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 1: we're headed there quick. And so that's why I think
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: some of this is all happening now, because in two years,
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 1: if you even walked out of your house, if you
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: even showed up in a parking lot, you were here
• 1:41:59
  Speaker 1: like undocumented, right? Or you're overstaying a visa. If you
• 1:42:04
  Speaker 1: showed up in a parking lot, there will be like
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 1: it is in London. They will have like cameras and
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: it will, you will know pretty quickly that This person isn't,
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: you know, so I think that that's where we're headed
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: and that's why that's happening. Right. And it is heartbreaking though.
• 1:42:16
  Speaker 3: I think it's a political tool.
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: I do too. And that's the fucking sickest thing. It's
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 1: like we all humans, we're down here having this to
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: have like, you know, be scared for our neighbors, scared
• 1:42:27
  Speaker 1: for ourselves. And those people are probably, they, you know,
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 1: they're getting on horseback. What the fuck are they? You know,
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: but they're, you know, they've sold a bill of goods
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 1: that this is their car. You know, it's like, yeah.
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: It's crazy. And you start to wonder, who's watching all this?
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 1: Are we all just being live streamed somewhere? Yeah.
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 3: You know, I did a story once about the Flat Earthers.
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 3: And of course, crazy movement. Obviously, I don't believe in
• 1:42:51
  Speaker 3: any of it. But one of their core beliefs, again,
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 3: I do not believe it's not true. The Earth is
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 3: not flat. But one of their core beliefs is that
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 3: we are being, it's like the Truman Show. We're being
• 1:43:02
  Speaker 3: watched and there is somebody kind of watching.
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: Well, it does feel like it sometimes when you start
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: to spin out a little bit.
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not. Let's say it again. Flat Earth. The
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 3: Earth is not flat. So they don't think there's any
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 3: credence for me bringing it up.
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: No, look, nobody's accusing you of that.
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 3: It just feels like we're all basically being, we're pawns
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 3: in the system, right?
• 1:43:21
  Speaker 1: It does start to feel like that.
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and not in a way, not in a conspiracy.
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 3: In my case, I don't think of it as a conspiracy.
• 1:43:28
  Speaker 3: I think it's like they have the power as a
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 3: president to fix certain things. And the reason why certain
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 3: things are not being fixed is is because it benefits
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 3: them not to fix them. You know, I talk about
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 3: this all the time. When 9-11 happened, 3,000 people died
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 3: on 9-11. We reorganized the government. We spent trillions of
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 3: dollars trying to make us safer. One million people have
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 3: died with the drug war or because of the opiate
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 3: crisis in the last 25 years. One million people. 3,000
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 3: people die a week. which is what died in 9-11, 3,000
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 3: every week from drug and alcohol. And our government still
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 3: hasn't figured out a way to create a better solution
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 3: to prevent this from happening. That makes no sense to me.
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: They don't want to. And yeah, it's not- You have
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: to believe that at a certain point, huh?
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, at a certain point, you just think like, what's happening? Like,
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 3: wake up. This, you know, Americans are suffering. And I
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 3: think in many ways, The suffering, you know, drug addiction, unemployment, poverty,
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 3: you know, many people, we used to be able to
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 3: afford a house, be able to get married, things that
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 3: people aren't allowed or can't make happen.
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 1: One parent used to be able to work.
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 3: Right. And you have a president who points the finger,
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 3: presidents and people. who point politicians, who point the finger
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 3: at immigrants as being the cause of all evil. Everything
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 3: that's bad in Europe life right now is because of
• 1:44:47
  Speaker 3: this group of people. And it's much easier, right? It's
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 3: easier to blame one group of people than it is
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 3: to actually fix the things that are wrong. Because then
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 3: you can just say, this is it.
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree with that. I think we're
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: in a spot right now where there's a lot of
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: exposing of like, I think people are seeing the lies.
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: They're seeing, oh, this is not, you don't care anymore.
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 1: You're not, you guys aren't voting on it. No, it's
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: all a charade. It's all nothing. You guys are all compromised. Um, yeah, I'm,
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: I'm working with this, uh, this democratic Congressman right now.
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 1: His name is Ro Khanna and he is the Congressman
• 1:45:24
  Speaker 1: for Silicon Valley. And we're working on building an app, right?
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: So an app where you could put in all your
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: beliefs into it and you could put in, I don't
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: want this person accepting money from these lobbies or I
• 1:45:33
  Speaker 1: don't want to associate it with this. And then you can, um,
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 1: you can say, tell me who I should vote for
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: based on these things, right? So then people will be
• 1:45:41
  Speaker 1: armed when they go. It's like, oh, this is exactly
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: who you should vote for if these are the things
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: you want. That's great. Because they trick you with all
• 1:45:49
  Speaker 1: this shit, you know? So I don't know. I think
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: that's why when I say militia, I'm like, I don't
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: know what– I'm just glad that militias are at least
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: practicing because there needs to be a revolution. I don't
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: know what it is. I don't think it's some guy
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: riding into the Capitol with a fucking– horns or something,
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: but I think it's something and I don't know what
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: it is, you know? Right.
• 1:46:09
  Speaker 3: In my mind, it's not so much, I mean, we
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 3: haven't found a better system than democracy, right? What is
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 3: a revolution going to bring is a different system. Unfortunately,
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 3: democracy is it.
• 1:46:17
  Speaker 1: Right. Because all we would do is go to another democracy.
• 1:46:21
  Speaker 3: Or worse, you know, a system that's not democracy, in
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 3: which case we're totally fucked. So if democracy is the
• 1:46:27
  Speaker 3: best system and it is about voting, it's, I think,
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 3: just about getting more engaged. Like I I kick myself
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 3: every election that I don't get more engaged. And, you know,
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 3: I'm trying to do work that is raising awareness to
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 3: issues and sort of shining a light on systems that
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 3: are broken. But at the same time, I wish I
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 3: should be doing more. I think all of us should
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 3: be doing more to make sure that our democracy survives.
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, maybe with your new podcast, you can have
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 1: important interviews with people who are going to make commitments.
• 1:46:57
  Speaker 1: And then like, I think we as like, I don't know,
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: we as podcasts, I'll probably go to jail for something.
• 1:47:02
  Speaker 1: But Um, but that we can try our best to
• 1:47:05
  Speaker 1: try to hold people to what they say, you know,
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: that's all we can do. Yeah. Um, but thank you.
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: Thank you for thinking out loud with me. You know,
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: one of the craziest things was they weren't people that
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: were coming across the border. They weren't even doing paperwork
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 1: on them because they wanted them to go back and
• 1:47:21
  Speaker 1: they wanted there to be this thing, right? They, because
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 1: that he makes the numbers look bigger. It's, it just,
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: it's all fucking such a charade.
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 3: It really is.
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: So we just have to think with our hearts and
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: keep shining light where we can and keep just trying
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: to do better ourselves.
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 1: I think we've talked about a lot of stuff today.
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 3: Yes, we have.
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: When's the new podcast going to start?
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 3: We don't know yet.
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 3: Sometime in the fall.
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 1: Cool. That's going to be great. And you're working with Ezra.
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 1: He's great.
• 1:47:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love Ezra.
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: And those guys. Rooster, are you working with the Rooster?
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, they're great.
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 3: I am.
• 1:47:51
  Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah, they do our ads and they're really,
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 1: really super. Yeah. Mariana Van Zeller, thank you so much.
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: Is there anything else you wanted to share?
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 3: I'm great. Thank you, Theo. This has been really awesome.
• 1:48:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. It's been an
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: easy conversation to have. So the new season, Traffic Starts.
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 3: It came out this past weekend on National Geographic. It
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 3: airs every Saturday at 9 p.m. And then all the
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 3: episodes are available on Hulu right now. So you can
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 3: watch the episodes from this season, but you can go
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 3: back and watch some of the episodes we talked about
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 3: from season one. all previous seasons.
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Fascinating. Being alive is interesting.
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 3: It is. Human beings are fascinating. I know.
• 1:48:30
  Speaker 1: It's fun. Mariana Van Zeller, thank you so much for
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: coming in. We appreciate your time. Congrats on the Emmys,
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: and we'll make sure to check out the new season.
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Theo. It's been awesome. Thank you.
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 2: Now I'm just floating on the breeze And I feel
• 1:48:44
  Speaker 2: I'm falling like these leaves I must be cornerstone Oh,
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 2: but when I reach that ground I'll share this peace
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 2: of mind I found I can feel it in my
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 2: bones Okay.