My MB Alex breakdown is supported by Helix sleep. Bring is in the air and so are all of the allergens that come with it. Spring allergens means you need more sleep, but there are a ton of factors that can prevent us from getting a good night's rest. Night sweats, back pain, feeling the person next to you when they roll over a million times. We were so excited to hear that Helix wanted to partner with us. I've had my Helix mattress for about five years now and I have been sleeping so much better. Jonathan and also our kids love their Helix mattresses and all of those issues, night sweats, back pain, motion transfer, those things are significantly better with a Helix mattress. Helix delivers your mattress right to your door, which is so much fun with free shipping in the US. They have a 120 night sleep trial and limited lifetime warranty plus they're happy with Helix guarantee. Rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges. The happy with Helix guarantee offers a risk-free customer first experience designed to ensure that you're completely satisfied with your new mattress. Go to helixleap.com slash breakdown for 27% off site wide. That's helixleap.com slash breakdown for 27% off site wide. helixleap.com slash breakdown. Everybody is scammable. Why are we so gullible? I was the victim of a romance scam. No. $12 billion were stolen for Americans just on scams alone. Once they drain your money, doesn't mean that you're no good for them anymore. You become the money laundrer or a drug dealer. Black and red markets make up for a third of the global economy, sex trafficking, pirates, assassins. They are really good at what they do. No one is born wanting to be a criminal. The lack of opportunities lead people to these lives of crime. We're talking about factories, full with tens of thousands of scammers. We should be blaming the systems. Mariana VanZeller is an investigative journalist gaining unprecedented access to cartel operations, trafficking networks, and black market systems all over the world. Organ trafficking is a booming industry. I interviewed a funeral director who showed me a pen where inside was a piece of human brain. Most scared I've ever been was with an assassin in South Africa. We spent two, three hours talking. And when I asked him, but have you realized that what you're doing to other children is exactly what was done to you? He stopped for a second, says, I hope that there are really great conversations about the lives we'll be in and what we choose to do with them.

Hi, I'm Mayan Bialek. And I'm Jonathan Cohen. And welcome to our breakdown. Today we're going to be talking to someone who holds the world's darkest secrets. And for a living tries to find the humans and the humanity behind what goes on in the hidden third of our economy. Mariana Van Zeller is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning investigative journalist. She's known for her National Geographic show, Traffic with Mariana Van Zeller, the most Emmy-nominated unscripted series in Emmy history. And she has a podcast, The Hidden Third, where she talks to people who have been victims of romance scams, cyber scams, banking scams, fraud. Her career has included gaining unprecedented access to cartel operations, trafficking networks, cybercrime rings, and black market systems all over the world. She's here today to talk about what are the lessons she has learned from speaking to some of the most complicated aspects of the black and gray markets. The stories we're going to hear today are, in many cases, unbelievable. And we all want to think we could never be scammed. It would never happen to us. But what Mariana is going to explain to us is that we are all on a spectrum of vulnerability and we are all susceptible to the things that matter most to us, whether that's security, money, love. We are all potentially open to learning more about ourselves from hearing the kinds of stories that Mariana has tackled for decades in her career. It's a pleasure to welcome in person Mariana Van Zeller to the breakdown. Break it down. Thank you for having me. This is a different episode than we normally do, but a lot of our episodes revolve around pulling back a curtain of what is happening in the world that a ton of people don't have access to. And that really describes most of your work. That's right, yeah. If no one has heard of you, which I find it hard to believe, can you describe a little bit about what you have done for all of these years? Yeah, absolutely. So I've spent the last 20 years of my life reporting as an investigative journalist on black markets. Black and gray markets actually make up for about a third of the global economy. Most people don't know anything about what's happening inside these black markets. We're talking about the drug trade, sex trafficking, scams, the world of assassins, pirates. And I've spent the last two decades basically gaining access to these worlds and speaking to the smugglers and the traffickers and the scammers and all of them. Many of us have heard of the black market from jokes, from snippets here and there on TV shows. Like, oh, buy it on the black market, right? Can you explain for someone who doesn't know what does the black market encompass and then what is the gray market? So the difference between the two is that the black market is everything that's illegal. So if you're buying guns illegally or drugs illegally or scamming people, robbing people, killing people, that's all part of the black market. The gray market is more great. The connection to taxes is obviously interesting, meaning that in an ideal world, all the money that's being created is sort of above board so that it can contribute to the greater society. But there's also a much bigger implication to people's lives, right? Like not only are they at risk, for example, of a crypto scam which we can discuss or a love scam which is maybe some of the most compelling emotional content, But if a third of the world's economy is operating in this area, there's no rules, there's no safety, there's no regulation. Can you describe maybe some of the potential impact even peripherally if this is how the world is worth it? I mean, it's gigantic, right? There's a whole world out there that, like you said, there is no safety and no security. I think a good example, most people don't think about this, but we did an episode about fake medications, fake pharmaceuticals, and how 20 million Americans can't afford their lifesaving medications sometimes and have to resort to the black market for pharmaceuticals. And that's going to labs that are often in India where you can order stuff online or going across the border into Mexico. So we went to both of those countries to understand how the pharmaceuticals, how these fake medications are being made. And the problem is that a lot of them don't actually have the active ingredients that they have. And worse than that, a lot of them are mixed in with incredibly dangerous chemicals that American consumers are taking and using and has led to deaths around the world. So it's this sort of, you know, world where they are, no real rules, there is no safety, and where it's dangerous for everyone. The trust people have in our institutions, especially here, you know, in the United States, is dwindling, right? And in many cases, people don't have trust in pharmaceutical companies, doctors, you know, what we're being told. How do you balance sort of what you do with also the very human need for people to get the care that they want, for example? I mean, I know people who go south of the border, you know, for lots of treatments. How do you sort of balance that? Because obviously, it's important for things to be above board. It's important for things to be verified. It's important for things to be, you know, accounted for. Yeah, I certainly don't blame the consumers for doing it. I think the biggest message that I try to weave through my work all the time is that we shouldn't be blaming the people. We should be blaming the systems.

It is because of broken systems that we have undocumented immigrants in this country, right? It is because of broken systems that we have a drug trade and drug epidemic that has killed a million Americans in the last 20 years. You know, these are all issues of systems that are failing people. And it's in those situations where ultimately you either have consumers or the users of those black markets that have to resort to those black markets or you have the people that are willingly operating in these black markets. No one is born wanting to be a criminal, right? You don't wake up one day either and decide, hey, I just want to start trafficking drugs. It is the majority of cases, not always, but the majority of cases, the lack of choices, the lack of opportunities that lead people to these lives of crime. And as long as there's inequality in this world, there is going to be growing violence and the booming black know, the booming black markets that exist around us. What is it about the vulnerability that you've sort of seen that runs through all of these different kinds of cases that you, you know, that you are involved in? Whether I'm interviewing a victim or I'm interviewing the perpetrator, I find out that their stories are very similar. That often it's the same, again, broken systems that has loved them to that part path. I remember interviewing one of the longest interviews I've ever done actually was with an assassin in South Africa. Now this is not somebody that we obviously do not condone what he does. Don't imagine understanding or connecting to a person who's ultimately killing people, like the worst of the worst thing you can possibly do. And yet we spend two, three hours talking. And at the end, what he told me, his life story was that his parents had been killed when he was eight or nine years old. Didn't have family that took him over, was on the streets basically. He spent most most of his life on the streets went into the drug trade,

eventually became an assassin, started using drugs in order to be able to kill people. And he saw the world as very black and white, right? It was bad people, he was just killing bad people, that's how he moralized it. And he would never ever touch women or children, only bad men. And when I asked him, But have you realized that what you're doing to other children is exactly what was done to you?

Right?

And he stopped for... women or children, only bad men. And when I asked him, but have you realized that what you're doing to other children

is exactly what was done to you, right? And he stopped for a second, says, no. No, I've never even thought of that. At the end of the interview, he came to me and I said, look, you were the first person ever that was interested in my life. No one ever asked me, nobody ever wanted to know anything about me. Literally no one wanted to know about my life or why I do what I do.

And he said, I've been wanting to get out of this for a long time, and I'm going to try and find a way out. I'm not saying that it was because of this conversation, but I do think conversations like these are incredibly important. Understanding the problem, understanding the root cause of all these problems, of all these black markets is the only way that we can prevent them from existing. You know, we can build all the walls, we can spend all the money on law enforcement we want, all the money on the drug trade, on the on fighting drugs on the drug war, I've done nothing to prevent the drug trade in this country, right? So unless we understand what's at the root of all of these problems, and that starts by asking questions, even of the people that we don't agree with, yeah, we're not gonna change anything. Mine be Alex Raychan is supported by optimizers. I struggled to get good quality sleep, and I just thought like, ugh, it's stress. But I learned during perimenopause and menopause, your hormones shift, and it affects your magnesium levels. Low magnesium makes everything harder, not just sleep, but focus, moods, stress tolerance. That's why we added magnesium breakthrough by bioptimizers to our nightly routine. It's a blend of seven different forms of magnesium designed to support relaxation and overall sleep quality. Try it, see if you wake up more rested and refreshed. You've got nothing to lose and a lot to gain. Bi optimizers offers a 365 day, no questions asked, money back guarantee. Magnesium breakthrough is a fantastic way to improve that hormonal imbalance that especially happens with magnesium. And then you have better focus, you have better sleep hygiene in general. Bi optimizers makes it so easy. Here's what you get when you go to bioptimizers.com slash breaker and use the code breaker. 15% off your entire order and a free bottle of mass signs. That's bi optimizers. Best selling digestive enzyme added to your order automatically when you use our exclusive code. That's a $20 product free on top of your discount. This is a limited time offer while supplies last. You cannot get this on Amazon. You can't get it in stores. The offer exists in one place. Our link, our code. That's it. So if you were already thinking about trying it, this is the sign. Go to buyoptimizers.com slash breaker, use the code breaker, grab it before it's gone. Make 2026 the year you finally start sleeping again. This episode is sponsored by Wondering Jews and Open Door Media Brand. If you've ever found yourself feeling like you have more questions than answers, you're in good company. The Jewish people have been like that for thousands of years. Wondering Jews with Michal and Noam is a podcast where two of today's most dynamic Jewish voices, Michal Beton and Noam Weissmann, dig into the biggest questions about life

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But for a few things, all of our lives would have been different.

Right, exactly. And that doesn't mean that I again condone what they do because I do get

a lot of shit for this. Like a lot of people say, how are you giving this plate, these

people a platform? Why are you, they even say that I'm glamorizing crime, which is absolutely untrue. I think that respecting people, treating people with respect by doing so, you're sort of expecting some humanity back, right? By understanding them, you're really getting at the core humanity, of what a human being is. And that, for me, has always been important. So when I'm trying to gain access to these worlds, which is the hardest thing we have to do on our job, I don't approach people first. It takes years sometimes to even get people to say yes, to talking to us. But once we do get to meet with these people,

...