None of this would exist, right, without the buyers in the United States and without the supply of guns in the United States.

So it goes both ways, right?

It's the consumers of these drugs that allow this business to flourish here in the United States.

And it's the easy supply of guns from the United States down to Mexico that allows this the cartels to survive.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to change agents, an Iron Cloud original presented by

Firecracker Farm. Today, we're going to be talking about the global criminal underworld with my guest, Mariana Van Zeller.

Mariana is a Portuguese American journalist and documentary filmmaker renowned for her investigative reporting on global crime and black market networks.

She began her media career in Portugal, later moving to the U.S. and London to produce

independent documentaries and deep on her reporting expertise, including studying Arabic in Damascus.

The latest season of her show trafficked. Season 5 premiered on July 19, 2025. Episode 1 was about

cartels in the United States. Episode 2, Scam City, investigating Southeast Asia's epicenter of romance and investment scams, known as pig butchering.

Episode three was the Trank Dope Underworld, examining the mysterious next wave of America's opioid crisis.

And episode four was Brides for Sale, where she traveled to Vietnam to investigate reports that young women are being trafficked into China to be sold as unwilling brides.

Let's dive into the episode.

If you could explain just how powerful the cartels have become in the U.S., the size of their presence, and maybe even dive into what makes their influence seemingly so difficult to either dismantle or destroy.

I know that's a super broad question, but it allows us to go from big to small.

Well, one of the shocking things that we found out, you know, I've been covering the

cartel for many years now. I think I've reported more from Sinaloa and Mexico than anywhere

else in the world outside of the U.S. And I think what even shocked me was when we started, I realized, you know, having

reporting a cartel that they have a huge presence here in U.S.

But so I wanted to do a story about just what is that presence?

What does that mean for the U.S.?

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