Of the show our guest is investigate to. Thats how i say it very are opinions supposed to investigative investigate to journalist marianna. Marianna is emmy nominated praised for her gripping and informative work best known for her investigates a documentaries seen the one death by sentinel i have not seen the oxycontin express but i believe that was her 1st bike one chasing el chapo says a new series and i love this idea trafficked with marianna van salar now on National Geographic marianna welcome to the show thank you dan its wonderful to be here. I love the idea of sort of a reverse engineering of the socorro that brings in essence contraband or off brand goods and threw it into our world what a great conceit tell me more about the show. Yeah i mean you know ive been reporting on sort of the end of world and black markets my whole life and. I decided that i really wanted to do sort of a whole series about this and i approached National Geographic with it and they were interested to me concerned about my security so the idea behind it is that in each episode its trafficked in each episode i go around the world and i started again access into these criminal networks around the world and we explore a different theme with each episode so one by one is spent in l. Theres another one about him send cocaine and guns and you go on and on and its just these black markets around the world and i get to sort of understand why they exist who are these black market operators and criminals and really spend time inside these very hidden and dark worlds thinking i remember years ago there was that guy called the scud stud arthur i care remember his name but he was a war correspondent its only bosnia was the most dangerous place because a get get killed from 5 directions these are most places i have been in the world i could just chill from for directions is there but it was so dangerous there i could dip killed through that isone i generally macro or via. He told me hes a listen impose gotta get out there and ill be honest with the i dig reaction its so funny there is such a a come leon lassen as you would like to be in the middle of all this but i guess you dish reaction right. I didnt action but most of all i did reporting about these issues you know its really interesting to me. This idea that you know we have entire networks and newspapers and magazines devoted to sort of analyzing the legal economy the formal economy and yet the informal economy actually makes up for over 60 percent of the Global Economy you know Something Like the drug trade for example alone is worth 300000000000. 00 a year and theres not a lot of people or outlets out there really studying these these underworld and thats thats really what fascinates me and yes i mean definitely the adrenaline and the knowing in a way and given access being given access to these wells that people usually dont get to see is pretty special. You know the such and huge sums of money and as you said often exist in the dark ether its like that court all that stuff you go if you if youre savvy enough or deprived enough you can go off road on the internet and find almost anything and pay for anonymously but the fact is some of these Delivery Systems are the contraband they might as well be as precise as a wish fulfilled thats how much solders love that there are really systems in place out there are no it is incredible its really truly incredible and you dont even need to go to the dark where to find any of this one of the episodes we did was about gun trafficking in the us a look at the flow of guns from the United States to mexico and how its fueling the drug violence Cartel Violence there and i live in los angeles and we started out episode actually just 1015 minutes away from a house in the corner of los angeles right next to a big freeway where we saw guns a good 40 sevens another was about a dozen weapons being stored and hidden into a car that night transported them into mexico and it was all done in plains it was up there in the open completely public with cars and families walking by and it blew me away i couldnt believe that this was just right there and since then if you like a lot of episodes that weve done shot so many scenes are happening i mean the majority of the scenes are happening right here we dont think of Trafficking Networks and these underworld are very far away and dark in places but what i found through this series is that more often than not theyre right next door. Im shocked such access marianna to the is there you go involved on the purveyors part that they want like anybody they want to be proud of their their gig no matter how much various or how do you gain access absolutely i mean you hit the nail on the head its exactly that its a lot of ego its also a lot of you know interviewing people who they do this this is their passion they do it theyve been doing it their whole lives for example making fake us dollars in lima peru we interviewed a peruvian who makes whos like the best in the world at finishing these hand these dollars by hand its the best 8 dollars in the entire world and weve managed to get ahold of him and interview him and any you know we dont we dont disguise there we dont we disguise identity we dont reveal his name or anything like that and it was for him an opportunity and i always ask this question why do you agree to talk to us and a lot of it again is like you said the you go but in some cases like this guy its this opportunity this one time to talk about something that he is so passionate about that he is so good at doing and they get not even his family know he does because a lot of these cases these criminals operate in their own families all know what theyre doing so he was given a choice to talk to an International Media station you know to National Geographic which you know is associated with trust him and they trusted that we were going to sort of protect our sources and given this opportunity to talk about what he loves and what hes really good at and so a lot of cases its also driven by that. Yeah in you know the greatest. Investigative journalism i have seen up to that point my life was Truman Capote is great in cold blood and at some point even sick puppies in prison feel the need to tell somebody about it now this man youre talking about its an artist and its more of a Economic Crime but even violent people get in behind and stir and they. The human need to brag on something even if its the most perverse gesture is mind boggling to me it absolutely is it is yeah i got one would think well if i dont think its totally only bragging i think a lot of times they just really want to tell their stories you know theyre these are the people that are sort of shunned and stereotyped in our society in a lot of times they just they feel a need to explain why they became who they are and you know they didnt grow up to be quick they didnt grow up criminals they dont want foreign criminals and a lot of times they want to explain sort of their lack of opportunities that lead them to into these trafficking worlds so thats whats always super fascinating to listen to as well. Were talking to Marianna Van Zeller and the show is called trafficked with Marianna Van Zeller i cant believe they didnt have a video where with white what device for this its on that but you would think that well this is right up both of their rallies and i am im really im im absolutely. Put it this way ive been in things of my life where people traditionally say are you scared to go speaking in front of a crowd as a stand up comedian that must be so scared i was like a radio id like to tell you. But at the end of the day im not getting shot at its not arms or legs its a little unnerving at 1st and you get better at it when youre out there are you able to completely distance yourself from the potential danger youre in or does it loom like a k 47 of damocles over your. You know its funny to me because for me this being interviewed and certainly being on stage is 100 percent scarier than being with us and youll see our character in mexico for example you know there are situations where its definitely get scary im not going to i always the thing with me i think that the korean city always gets the best part of me you know there was one situation in mexico we were sort of given access to hang out with these sick arias these gunmen in siena lower and elsewhere going in and they tell us point blank look we can sort of protect you while youre here in our territory but if the marines show up or if you know the the other cartel shows up if the enemy shows up essentially their own start shooting at us theres going to be a fight a war and we cant protect you there then you know its you just do what you can to survive and there was a moment of obviously in these cases where we dont turn to my team and we talked about this you know were all aware of whats involved in this in the shooting of the series and we decided you know we felt comfortable enough with going and we did it and towards the end of our filming weve spent a few hours there interviewing some of the security is the government and towards the end you know they always carry these walkie talkies and you hear the chatter all the time they cant turn them off even 13 interview that because theyre being given certain information of whats happening and they know exactly whos walking going in driving in and out of their territory and all of that and suddenly you start hearing these sort of alarm voices and something is happening and they start yelling ok we have to cut this we have to cut this the marines are coming in there and we start running up to our car and we saw there was a marine helicopter coming towards us and it was a small no where we thought it was this was a super to save your lives and we were caught in the city and what we do do we sort of hide and in that case theyre going to if they find if they see if theyre going to think that we have something to hide and we openly start you know waving our hands and saying journalist journalist. But there were 2 folks in too far away from us or do we just try to sort of drive off and where in this middle of this very suspicious territory that is known to be controlled by the city by you know look our town it was tough and now its yes the moments like this that you think defeat this with it is a story with that. You know nothing about any less i it was its what happened. We will and once again the show is trafficked with marianne events eller its on National Geographic to talk about that being tough but imagine one other thing would be tough when i hear guys like Robert Shapiro or gerry spence cats talk about the founding guys who they are maybe you dont want to ask the final question did you murder this person because you dont want to know the answer because they deserve according to our system a invigorated defense as they say when youre with somebody who is not telling you a tale about how possibly their their upbringing or weird twist in life brings them to being the best guy they the picasso of crafting the final overlay on a dollar bill thats fake what about when youre talking to somebody who has a product that leads inevitably to the death of youngsters are you able to do i know theres that 5 w. Party you that wants to get the story the information are you repulsed by that maria able to view them objective lee or do you can you hate them and still do the story. Hate is a very strong word and its one that i im not truly im not there to judge and they are to try to understand i think that by understanding and sharing whats happening these worlds is really a much Better Service and much better time for me spent time for me you know ultimately what you want to see how the why these situations happen and what leads a person to do what they do you know there was one case for example where we were one of the episodes was about sends an 11 covering the opiate crisis for many many years and i spent a lot of time with mothers of lost their sons and daughters to the opiate epidemic and there was one situation where we were filming with mule a drug mule in this case are actually happens to be a woman and was pregnant and she was transporting 5 kilos offense now into the United States and had a allowed us to sort of film her as she was crossing the border from mexico into the United States and it was tough i mean it was really tough for me to watch her do it and to feel at the moment you know that i was thinking about all the women in the mothers that ive interviewed who lost loved ones and they mean that if they were here and see me report on this how would they judge me and on the one hand obviously i didnt want the drugs to go across because i know what happened and then the on the other hand i also spent a whole day with this woman in which i always ask in all my interviews is do you know the harm that you are doing and how do you live with that with knowing that and how do you live with that you had you feel any guilt. You know it definitely is always a question that i ask you know it was a super interesting in a very difficult from moment for me as a journalist to sort of how morally to do or this up. We are talking to marianna and the show is trafficked with marianna band zeller its on National Geographic going to take a break when we come back well i know that earlier one of her one of her big. Pieces of work is the oxycontin express recently produced farm pharmaceuticals i believe an 8000000 payment by the Sackler Family i want to talk to her about that also want to talk about chasing el chapo death by fat and all the oxycontin express it is an appreciable it is a 1st of all at tesh a case of work shes done for such a young age and will explore more right after this on Dennis Miller plus one. What happens when People Lose Trust in the c. N. N. Money in the Central Banks in the bad so were going to find out. Continuity for change this is whats being asked when considering a potential. Troop Meeting Point to obamas legacy might be the same trumps like this or is this all only continuity drives Foreign Policy not the occupant in the. They folks welcome back to Dennis Miller plus one talking to a real reporter hair off times people ascribe reporter status to so and at some point i think of them as prompter readers but somebody is going to go out in a field and dig these these truffles up and mary ann is out there rotting away mary and event zeller and the show is trafficked with mary and of ed sellers we talked about in the 1st segment if youre just joining us now though its a very cool idea to look into this silk road sort of those old Indiana Jones maps of where it starts where it goes for contraband items that are off the off the grid and i find it fascinating and i know she got her start doing some documentaries an emmy nominated documentary series and in 2010 you won the esteemed peabody award for your documentary the oxy cotton express in the news again tell me about that report 1st before we go back chat about the Sackler Family and their recent payment. Yeah absolutely i mean i had never heard much about oxycontin before that and i was we were reading there was this not a small snippet in the miami herald about these pain clinics in florida or essentially distributing and doling out these pain pills and there were people from all over the United States coming and to buy these pills and it wasnt a lot about information about you know the sort of the opiate crisis was in its infancy at this time and so we set out and head to my husband and i who is my work partner at the time a producer and camera man at the time and director of the film and we set out to miami and south florida not my himself florida to Broward County and spent time looking into these pain clinics and there it was i mean it was cars from all over the eastern seaboard as far away as West Virginia and kentucky and ohio and theyd come even bus loads of people may come and you see these parking lot full of chorus from out of state and these body guards outside these pain clinics and these lines of people waiting outside these pain clinics and inside you get in and then i went in with us a camera super camera and i just was able to see how easy it was to get your hands on you know a bottle of oxy carton and percocet and whatever it was you needed and i mean it was as easy as me going in and talking to the receptionist and telling them you know id love to see the doctor id love to get some have my hands on some prescriptions i have a back pain and shes like yeah we can give you this this this and this and gave me the whole list of prescriptions that i was going to be able to get and then we followed the trail of prescriptions and saw sort of the trail of devastation and death all the way up to kentucky and West Virginia and yeah it was it was incredible it was one of those stories that you know as a reporter you set out with this idea that you want to tell the story and then when you hit the ground you realize that the story so much bigger than you and. You know how you know youre somebody thought you find yourself in the midst of this incredible story. And then yeah it was it was amazing and then after that we sort of followed a few years from there we did harris documentary on heroin abuse because oxy pot making more difficult to get a handle on supply started moving on to heroin and then sentinel a few years ago but its just been crazy to see what started as sort of a smaller story become this you know horrific epidemic the Worst Epidemic in american history. Purdue pharmaceuticals who i believe is on maybe in toto or predominantly by the Sackler Family for her pain and in 1000000000. 00 settlement what would you say their most egregious offense was they must anon they were caught red handed were they selling it as something that is what tell me what you know that were you know there are many i mean there were they knew full well that it was addictive incredibly dangerous and there were i mean their commercial their t. V. Ads from the time out there where you see them you know advertising this as something completely Addiction Free great for anyone and then also i mean its known that they paid doctors around the country to go on what they call these talking conferences which really was you know will give you an amazing week at a Las Vegas Hotel now theyre all expenses paid for and you you have to prescribe oxy cotton so doctors you know some of them willingly knowing that they were doing something wrong something wrong but a lot of them actually it was a change at the time that doctors believed that the best way to treat pain patients was by giving them pain medication and i think a lot of doctors didnt realize at the time that these things were incredibly addictive but of course as time went by and the doctor started realizing that these were addictive there were some that kept on giving because you know it made them money and produce pharma was on in on all of that they knew it was addictive they knew exactly what was being used for their email exchanges between the Top Executive producer talking about how they wanted to target areas that they knew would they would get you know addicts and people who were more prone to buying this stuff stuff medication it was a rethink i mean they have blood all over their hands for exactly. Horrific indeed if its possible to get off cheaply at 8000000000. 00 that family did but i would assume they do not sleep the sleep of angels at night you know when you look at heroin when i was a youngster im 67 now when i was young heroin was for jazz cats and paris or than in the village i made it was so far out there that you know but i think the talking about traffic i think if you reverse engineer the chain of events in a world of prescribed anxiety drugs that have a half life on them prescription wise kids would get dumped out from. A regimen of exaggerated drugs and actually the next thing they get as you said. Actually would get too expensive unbelievably they get dumped out heroines doorstep is a my making that too simple as that how weve gotten to this point of madness in the culture you know its its an opiate as well it sort of satisfies the same cravings as oxycontin you know you got started for a lot of these kids as something that they would do it parties with their friends and never in a 1000000 years that they think that they one day would be shooting up heroin and they do and its truly sad and i remember interviewing one kid who was sort of the all star wrestler and Football Player at his high school had gotten all these. Scholarships to go to all these different colleges great kid and got injured in his last year of. High school was sent to the hospital and was given by the doctors are just a few months x. 3 or 4 months later he was shooting heroin isnt sent and you hear they hear these stories again and again when i lived in new york city for a while i had one friend who was a homicide detective. He told me once in candor that he had he had almost seen too much. I mean the mans inhumanity to man was part of him clocking in were you at on that scale now are you still. A woman or having seen the dark side of it has it worn on you or is your head. So you question i dont know i think it hasnt worn out i have to have love what i do you get so excited with every story you know going out in the field and being able to tell the stories its such a privilege i dont i dont i dont i feel like i could do this forever but talk to me in 10 years you see roma you studied International Relations in university i studied journalism in an odd way i became a comedian on a t. V. Show s n l where i did but it was never part of my studies do you find that your International Relations degree has helped you at all in the real down and dirty world of journalism sometimes oh absolutely you know just learning all about the world and having sort of different perspective on Different Countries how they were born what was happening out of these countries how borders were made oh absolutely yeah its interesting people always ask me if doing a mass of journalism masters is worth it or doing a journalism degree at all is where i think im very happy with having done International Relations but i would say that for me ylem university was sort of my window its of american journalism you know i knew nothing about how things work here and it really helped me but im not sure if its necessary for everyone even though its columbia here is me so yes theyre probably going to kill me but i think that helps me a lot so how in the back i dont think theyll kill you but they might hit you up twice for a donation coming out there used to. Raise a couple checks. Or listen you seem like a woman in full are you are just so youre married your husband is also in the business you know as well as a other hes a documentary mentor country director and he owned a Production Company called much media that is producing traffic for National Geographic and a bunch of documentaries now who do you dig im a big documentary fan im an arm or a spare and Barbara Kopple i could watch documentaries all night quite frankly and. Verner herzog is one of the best their best you know its interesting view there on morris once and i was so nervous it was 8 or 9 years ago i was literally shaking because obviously ive watched all his documentaries and hes such a good interviewer and i was so nervous i thought hes going to look straight to me and see that i suck at this and i should not be in this business at all so shaking all over and i had written all my questions beforehand which is something that i actually usually dont do i hate writing down questions i like sitting down and having more of a conversation than being stuck to questions but with him just because i didnt i was nervous id written down all my questions and i started asking him all this questions where the end of the interview i asked him so you know youre such a good interviewer for people who want to be more like you what advice would you give and he said well never do what you just stick which is read a post approach to. Give room lunch break its got to me and once again i will be going getting a season to the show on National Geographic trafficked with Marianna Van Zeller. The wish kid from portugal not living in l. A. Doing gods work but the doctor could all thank you so much senator lucretia all right this is Dennis Miller plus one. Join me every thursday on the alex simon show and ill be speaking to guests of the world of politics sports business im show business ill see you then. Always. Get into any conversation or start answering questions just. Survive and. Youre more likely to walk free if youre rich and. If youre poor. You got. One now. So you should be seen in here and a whole lot more than youre saying if you dont take it easy going to dig yourself a hole. Continuity or change this is what is being asked when considering a potential. Point. When you can be the same. Or is this all only continuity. In the. Law. If youre born into a poor family if youre born into a minority family if youre born into a family as a single parent that really constrains your life chances. By every day you meet your needs and the needs of your family. For people. In the west. Before these. Meetings are leaked. Conservative group claims the tapes. Against president. Those are your headlines and. News
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