NEW YORK (1010 WINS) -- Peabody Award-winning journalist Mariana van Zeller has spent her entire career shedding light on society's darkest (and often best kept) secrets.
In her new series "Trafficked," not only does she continue the trend by exploring various enterprises in the criminal underworld, but she ups the ante by fully immersing herself in exchange for a firsthand look at how business is conducted.
In an exclusive interview with 1010 WINS, van Zeller says that although she and her crew got so close to the action in the show, they were only there "to witness what [was] happening and the reality of what's happening [in those countries]."
She adds that many of the people she meets "are mothers and fathers. They have kids to feed, they have dreams to achieve, and for one reason or another, for lack of opportunities, they enter this life of crime [to escape]." In fact, one of her biggest takeaways from the project was the overwhelming amount of empathy she found herself feeling for the people that society deems "criminals." She also learned about the treacherous lengths these illegal enterprises just to stay hidden.
From America to the Amazon, "Trafficked" proves that danger doesn't discriminate. While filming, van Zeller says that there were several instances where "things definitely didn't go as planned."
In the episode where she explores the cocaine industry, for example, the only time she could get access to a film a lab was "in the middle of the night." She adds that she and her crew were forced to travel "without any lights, in an incredibly sort of slippery and dangerous terrain with a bunch of poisonous [animals] all around [them]." They couldn't even turn on a single flashlight because then neighboring villages would be alerted of their presence and could harm them.
Despite how scary the situation was, though, van Zeller says that not once did she want the cameras to stop rolling. It is a show about access after all, so why deny the audience to access to the full experience?
With "Trafficked," van Zeller feels a responsibility to "peel the curtain and really show what happens in the in-between moments…when these more sort of dangerous situations come knocking at [your] door."
While van Zeller and her crew obviously made it out just fine, she still implores people to watch the series to see what happens and because "it's been [her] dream to do a show like this for many years."
And it's not ending any time soon either, as National Geographic has already ordered a second season . However, when asked what the next season could look like, fittingly, van Zeller kept mum.
Be sure to catch Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller on National Geographic Wednesdays at 9/8c.
