Joe Rogan Experience #2092 - Mariana van Zeller

1. 0:00 – 3:18

   Mariana’s new season begins with a Niger gold-mining trip—and a sudden military coup

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out.

   2. NANarrator0:04

      The Joe Rogan Experience.

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. (instrumental music) Hello.

   4. MZMariana van Zeller0:13

      Hi.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:13

      Good to see you my friend. How's things?

   6. MZMariana van Zeller0:14

      So good to see you. Great. Thanks so much for having me again.

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:16

      I'm so happy every time I see you that you're alive and well.

   8. MZMariana van Zeller0:19

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      'Cause you do some wild stuff, lady. (laughs) You get involved in some, some situations.

   10. MZMariana van Zeller0:26

       I do. This, this past year was crazy.

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:28

       Yeah?

   12. MZMariana van Zeller0:29

       Yeah. This, uh, we just had season four come out and it's my favorite season for many reasons, but, um, also because it was quite the adventure.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:37

       What did you get involved with this season?

   14. MZMariana van Zeller0:39

       Oof. Um, (laughs) well, uh, it ended with a military coup in Africa, where my team and I-

   15. JRJoe Rogan0:44

       Oh, boy.

   16. MZMariana van Zeller0:44

       ... got stuck. Mm-hmm. So that was sort of the-

   17. JRJoe Rogan0:47

       What part of Africa?

   18. MZMariana van Zeller0:48

       ... kickoff to all of it. Um, it was in Niger, so it's in the Sahel region of Africa. The US has actually a military presence. Remember a few years ago when there were these, uh, four US marines that were killed in the Sahel in Niger, and nobody even knew they were there?

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:03

       Mm-hmm.

   20. MZMariana van Zeller1:03

       Well, there's actually over 1,000 troops stationed in Niger. And, uh, we were there in a little town called Agadez, which is in sort of the southern border of the Sahara Desert, and we were doing a story about gold mining. So the story itself was incredible. We had to, you know, we had, uh, con- military co- convoy with us because it's incredibly dangerous part of the world. You've got terrorism, you've got ISIS, Al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, you've got kidnappers, so it's very, very dangerous.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:29

       Mm.

   22. MZMariana van Zeller1:29

       We'd gone there with the permission of the government, but only if we, we had to have a military con- uh, convoy with us at all, all times. So we're talking about four tru- armored trucks, uh, with lots of trained soldiers that every time we stopped, they'd get out of the trucks and basically point their guns all around. They were very well-trained.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:46

       Wow.

   24. MZMariana van Zeller1:46

       A lot of them are actually trained by the American military. And, uh, we went out into the desert and visited these gold mines which are crazy. It was an eight-hour off-roading into the desert to arrive at these illegal, unregulated mines. We're going down these tunnels and it's, you know, h- uh, a hundred meters down, hand, uh, dug tunnels with no, nothing to buttress them, no safety precautions or anything.

   25. JRJoe Rogan2:11

       Oh.

   26. MZMariana van Zeller2:11

       But we filmed it all and we get to the end, and there's people basically mining for gold. And, and again, constantly with the idea that the military is telling us, "Okay, we have to film fast, we have to do this fast. We can't be out at night." So we went to a sort of safety, uh, more safe location to sleep that night under the stars. And then the next day, it's time to come back to Agadez, the town, which is about 100 miles but takes anywhere between, like, three to 12 hours to get because you can, lots of things can happen along the way. And we arrived in Agadez and we got word that there had been a military coup and the president had been deposed, and, uh, he was now being kidnapped inside the presidential palace, basically was stuck there with his family, and that we were about to lose our military compound and security. And they closed all the land borders and the airspace, and we were stuck, uh, with no way out 'cause you can't travel by road without security in that part of the world, and there were no planes leaving, so we were stuck.

   27. JRJoe Rogan3:16

       Wow. How long were you stuck for?

2. 3:18 – 6:58

   Eight days trapped: power struggle, collapsing security, and a DIY evacuation plan

   1. MZMariana van Zeller3:18

      Uh, it was about nine days. Uh, the military coup-

   2. JRJoe Rogan3:21

      Oh, my God.

   3. MZMariana van Zeller3:21

      ... happened on a Wednesday, and we left on a Thursday, sorry, so e- eight days, but it was eight incredibly scary days. You know, I'm, I've been a journalist covering black markets and going to war zones and conflict areas all my life, but this was, I think, the most uncomfortable and scared I've ever been because first of all, the uncertainty of not knowing. There were all these, the West African states were threatening invasion. The merc- the Wagner Group, the Russian mercenary group were saying that they were going to come and protect the new, um, military coup leaders. And so it was a power struggle between the United States and Russia, and that's sort of the last place you want to be, right?

   4. JRJoe Rogan4:00

      Wow.

   5. MZMariana van Zeller4:00

      And again, no protection. I'm there with my team. I'm sort of the, uh, the boss in that situation because I'm the owner of the company that produces this, I'm the host of the show, I'm the executive producer, and I felt very responsible for my team as well. And, and yeah, the clock is ticking and they're telling us that in a few days we're going to invade and there's gonna be a massive possi- possibility of a massive war. And we're stuck with, again, no protection and no way out. So it was really, really scary.

   6. JRJoe Rogan4:31

      How did it get resolved?

   7. MZMariana van Zeller4:32

      Huh. Um, that's the interesting part. So the funny thing is that the m- there was an American military base, actually one of the biggest Air Force bases, um, ever built, cost o- over $100 million to build just two miles from our little hotel in Agadez. We were the only foreigners there apart from aid workers that sort of live behind barbed wire and in compounds. But we were the only foreigners staying in a hotel. This hotel, uh, interestingly enough (laughs) , was actually built when Gaddafi came to visit in the '90s or late '80s, and it was a rundown hotel. We were there, again, no protection, nothing. And the military base is just two miles from us and we'd tried, uh, to get inside the base to film and we'd been denied access to the base. But when the coup happened, we managed to get a contact inside and started asking them, "We're here with no security. Can you guys come and help us and figure out, you know, take us into the base?" Something, we're all American citizens except for our fixer, a local guy who was actually from Mali, but everybody else was American. And they were stuck in this situation that all the other countries had ca- had started calling this a coup, but the US government did not and because the moment they called it a coup, they would have to remove, um, the military, possibly remove military, remove their aid from the country.

   8. JRJoe Rogan5:52

      Hmm.

   9. MZMariana van Zeller5:52

      And that's the last thing you want to do.... so they couldn't evac- They didn't want to evacuate us. They didn't wanna call it a coup, they didn't wanna take ... get us out of there. Uh, their hands were sort of tied, that's how they told us. And we started seeing, slowly, as the days started passing and the situation was deteriorating, we started seeing, you know, the French were taking ... were sending planes to take out all the French nationals, the British, the Portuguese, which is where I'm, um, a double nationality, where I'm from. And I'm on the phone with the Ambassador for Portugal telling me, "There is a plane for you. There is, like, seats for you in the capital," but the capital is eight hours away or 12 hours away by land. And we can't go be- 'cause there's ... it's too dangerous and no airplanes would take us there. And eventually, we realized that the only way that we'd be able to get out is if we took matters into our own hands, so actually my team in LA found an evacuation company, uh, willing to (laughs) fly a plane in the-

   10. JRJoe Rogan6:44

       Whoa.

   11. MZMariana van Zeller6:44

       ... middle of the night to get us out.

   12. JRJoe Rogan6:46

       That sounds like a Chuck Norris movie. (laughs)

   13. MZMariana van Zeller6:48

       Oh. It was, it was-

   14. JRJoe Rogan6:49

       Evacuation company. Psh.

   15. MZMariana van Zeller6:51

       Oh. It was actually Argo. It was ... Have you watched the movie, Argo-

   16. JRJoe Rogan6:54

       No.

   17. MZMariana van Zeller6:54

       ... with Ben Affleck about the guys-

   18. JRJoe Rogan6:56

       Oh, yeah.

   19. MZMariana van Zeller6:56

       ... in Iran and they're-

   20. JRJoe Rogan6:56

       No, I did watch that. Yeah.

3. 6:58 – 9:28

   Escape at sunrise: Portuguese backchannel, last-second boarding, and a human moment

   1. MZMariana van Zeller6:58

      And how they don't know until the last minute if they're going to leave or not? It was exactly that situation. So, we get to the (laughs) airport in the middle of the night, so they told us, uh, that we have to be at the airport at this time, that we had to take security with us because the pilot was refusing to land unless we had security there, police. Um, the police was supposed to show up, they never did. We arrive at the airport, it's sunrise, and, uh, the military is there waiting for us. Yeah.

   2. JRJoe Rogan7:26

      Ugh.

   3. MZMariana van Zeller7:26

      It's one of those. And they start creating all sorts of problems saying we don't have the right paperwork, they're not gonna let us leave. Meanwhile, there is this amazing man, local man who worked at the airport that I'd met a few days before when I went there to try to see if, if there's any plane leaving, let us know. And so I stayed in touch with him and I had told him that it was my son's birthday, um, which was partially not true. (laughs) It wasn't his birthday, but he was about to leave camp and I've got this tradition as a working mother who travels all the time, we have this tradition that I always pick him up from camp, and it's a performing arts camp. And, and so I told him ... Sorry, this is a very long story.

   4. JRJoe Rogan8:03

      No, no, it's good.

   5. MZMariana van Zeller8:04

      So I told him, uh, you know ... And so, he was there to help us, but the military was also there and they didn't want us to leave, and creating all sorts of problems. And then, we see the plane land and we see the pilot come out, and we see the military start walking towards the pilot to tell them that we didn't have the permission to leave. And my fear was that the pilot was immediately going to turn around, 'cause he had told us that we had 20 minutes. He was gonna spend 20 minutes on the ground-

   6. JRJoe Rogan8:27

      Right.

   7. MZMariana van Zeller8:27

      ... and if we couldn't get into the plane, he was gonna leave without us. And, uh, they get there and he starts talking to them. And I'm on the phone with the team in LA and I'm freaking out, and telling them, "Well, this is horrible. This is happening. They don't want us to leave." And then my husband's on the phone with me as well, he's telling me, "I see the pilot's name and I think he's Portuguese. Run to him." And I ran to him at the same time as the military, and I started speaking to him in Portuguese.

   8. JRJoe Rogan8:51

      Mm.

   9. MZMariana van Zeller8:51

      And telling him the situation and that, "Do whatever you can to get us out," and the military can't understand Portuguese.

   10. JRJoe Rogan8:57

       Ugh.

   11. MZMariana van Zeller8:57

       So, there was a secret communication happening between me and him. And, and he was Portuguese and he decided to take the risk of getting-

   12. JRJoe Rogan9:05

       Wow.

   13. MZMariana van Zeller9:05

       ... us on the plane, and we managed to get out of there. But the, the p- the guy from the military was still yelling as the door closes, but so was the guy that I'd met at the airport, who turns to me, yells my name. And I look back and he says, "Hey, Mariana, say happy birthday to your son." So in the midst of the craziness, there was also a beautiful moment of connection and humanity.

4. 9:28 – 10:22

   Danger as the job: why she keeps reporting despite the risk

   1. JRJoe Rogan9:28

      You've done so many of these boots on the ground, dangerous, investigative journalist shows. Do you, do you ... At a certain point in time, do you, like say, "Okay, I've, I've rolled the dice enough."

   2. MZMariana van Zeller9:41

      No.

   3. JRJoe Rogan9:42

      Wow.

   4. MZMariana van Zeller9:42

      (laughs) No, it's really ... It's what I love to do. Um, obviously, that was a moment of a lot of uncertainty. But still, when we spent a week on the ground and we still kept on reporting on the story we were there for, we s- we kept ... We're stuck in this dilemma, do we stay closed in our hotel or do we go out and continue reporting on the story?

   5. JRJoe Rogan9:59

      Wow.

   6. MZMariana van Zeller9:59

      We decided to keep reporting. But it, it is, it is ... You know, there's a lot of sacrifice that goes into it, but I'm ... It's what I love to do.

   7. JRJoe Rogan10:07

      It's so sketchy. (laughs)

   8. MZMariana van Zeller10:08

      Yeah. Sometimes it's sketchy. Not always, but sometimes.

   9. JRJoe Rogan10:11

      Well, the gold mine itself, just going down these hand-

   10. MZMariana van Zeller10:13

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan10:13

       ... with no buttresses, hand-carved gold mines. Like, ugh.

   12. MZMariana van Zeller10:17

       Yeah, and these guys do it every single day for hours on ends, you know?

   13. JRJoe Rogan10:22

       Ugh.

   14. MZMariana van Zeller10:22

       Yeah.

5. 10:22 – 14:09

   Where the gold goes: middlemen, Dubai demand, and why gold fascinates people

   1. JRJoe Rogan10:22

      And who are they digging gold for?

   2. MZMariana van Zeller10:24

      They sell it to middlemen. We then went and interviewed the middleman, a guy called Clikley, super, uh, colorful character, um, who basically then sells it to the Gulf. Majority of the gold goes to Dubai.

   3. JRJoe Rogan10:36

      Really?

   4. MZMariana van Zeller10:36

      Yeah. Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan10:37

      Dubai loves that bling.

   6. MZMariana van Zeller10:38

      Oh, they love the bling. (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan10:39

      They love the bling out there.

   8. MZMariana van Zeller10:40

      They do.

   9. JRJoe Rogan10:40

      Have you ever seen the amount of gold that exists on Earth?

   10. MZMariana van Zeller10:45

       No.

   11. JRJoe Rogan10:46

       The, the finite amount of gold that exists on Earth is shockingly small.

   12. MZMariana van Zeller10:51

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan10:52

       Shockingly small. Jamie, see if you can find that. The amount of gold that exists on Earth-

   14. MZMariana van Zeller10:57

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan10:57

       I forget what the exact m- unit of measurement that they used.

   16. MZMariana van Zeller11:01

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JRJoe Rogan11:01

       But you go, "What? What?" That's it. 244,000 metric tons of gold has been discovered to date. Most of that gold has come from three countries, China, Australia and South Africa.

   18. MZMariana van Zeller11:14

       South Africa. Wow.

   19. JRJoe Rogan11:15

       So ...

   20. MZMariana van Zeller11:16

       Wow. Yeah, this is why it's disgusting.

   21. JRJoe Rogan11:18

       But if you, if you ... Like, I've seen it represented. There, there it is.

   22. MZMariana van Zeller11:21

       Yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan11:21

       That's it, that's the whole-

   24. MZMariana van Zeller11:22

       No.

   25. JRJoe Rogan11:22

       Yep, that's it.

   26. MZMariana van Zeller11:24

       No way.

   27. JRJoe Rogan11:25

       Yep. That's it.

   28. MZMariana van Zeller11:27

       Oh, wow.

   29. JRJoe Rogan11:27

       That's all the gold. So if you ... What we're seeing, folks, is, uh, a couple of large trucks and what looks like a half a football field of gold. Is that about right? About a half football field?

   30. MZMariana van Zeller11:39

       Yeah.
6. 14:09 – 19:58

   Diamonds, De Beers, and the exploitation behind luxury—and the cobalt parallel

   1. MZMariana van Zeller14:09

      I don't either. You know, we had a, when I was... One of the first stories I did with my husband back in the day, when we were still traveling and reporting together, was actually in the Brazilian Amazon, and it was about this, one of the biggest diamond mines they've ever found, and it was on an Indian land, and, uh, white miners came in, and the Indians decided to revolt and killed and tortured and cut off the penises of-

   2. JRJoe Rogan14:31

      Oof.

   3. MZMariana van Zeller14:32

      ... 30 of them, and, you know-

   4. JRJoe Rogan14:34

      Wow.

   5. MZMariana van Zeller14:34

      ... they killed 30 people, massacred and tortured lots of them. Um, and it was horrible. And we went there and started investigating this, and we weren't married. He was my boyfriend at the time. We were planning on getting married, but we had... We were in these little, tiny, you know, Wild West towns in the Amazon, and the amount of people that we had come up to us, and actually with little paper bags, like fo- rolled paper with little diamonds inside, asking us if we wanted to buy it for nothing, like close to nothing.

   6. JRJoe Rogan15:01

      Wow.

   7. MZMariana van Zeller15:01

      We thought about it, but we didn't. (laughs)

   8. JRJoe Rogan15:03

      Yeah. It doesn't seem like you should.

   9. MZMariana van Zeller15:06

      No. No. No.

   10. JRJoe Rogan15:07

       (laughs) Maybe if you found one.

   11. MZMariana van Zeller15:09

       Yeah.

   12. JRJoe Rogan15:09

       But-

   13. MZMariana van Zeller15:09

       Just, well, we actually-

   14. JRJoe Rogan15:11

       Yeah.

   15. MZMariana van Zeller15:11

       ... went to the mines, and I remember... That's what happens. We went to gold mines in the Amazon as well for another story, is that when you're in these places, you're, you can't stop looking (laughs) at the ground to see if by any chance you find anything, but obviously...

   16. JRJoe Rogan15:24

       Yeah. How, uh, difficult is it for them to find diamonds? 'Cause that's the thing about the De Beers.

   17. MZMariana van Zeller15:30

       Yeah.

   18. JRJoe Rogan15:30

       They're so smart with what they've done.

   19. MZMariana van Zeller15:32

       Mm-hmm.

   20. JRJoe Rogan15:32

       They basically have warehouses filled with diamonds.

   21. MZMariana van Zeller15:34

       I know.

   22. JRJoe Rogan15:35

       And they've elevated the price to pretend that they're rare, but they're not really rare anymore.

   23. MZMariana van Zeller15:38

       Mm-hmm.

   24. JRJoe Rogan15:39

       Because of their mining abilities, the, the, the technology has increased, uh-

   25. MZMariana van Zeller15:43

       Right. They control the price that way.

   26. JRJoe Rogan15:44

       Yeah.

   27. MZMariana van Zeller15:45

       Right.

   28. JRJoe Rogan15:45

       It's pretty smart. (laughs)

   29. MZMariana van Zeller15:46

       Very smart. Yeah. It's difficult to find a mine, a diamond. It's really difficult. I mean, there's a lot of backbreaking work. We went to Sierra Leone and did this, another story about that, too. It's backbreaking work. It's not, not easy. And they make nothing, you know. The miners make nothing.

   30. JRJoe Rogan16:00

       Yeah. That's where it's really creepy.
7. 19:58 – 23:43

   Ape trafficking: baby gorillas and chimps sold to private zoos and exotic-pet buyers

   1. JRJoe Rogan19:58

      Who's trafficking in apes?

   2. MZMariana van Zeller20:00

      Oh. Um, well a lot of them are ending up in the Arabian Gulf, in Dubai, again.

   3. JRJoe Rogan20:05

      What do they do with them?

   4. MZMariana van Zeller20:06

      They put them in private zoos that they then, then charge visitors to come and see. Um, they, uh, put them in private homes, people that want to have exotic pets in their house.

   5. JRJoe Rogan20:17

      Someone has a gorilla in their house?

   6. MZMariana van Zeller20:18

      Oh, they do. Gorillas go for $500,000 or more.

   7. JRJoe Rogan20:24

      Wow.

   8. MZMariana van Zeller20:24

      And it's a crazy gorilla that they catch in the wild. And the sad part about it is, is that in na- to be able to catch that gorilla, they then... And the same thing with chimpanzees, they have to kill the whole family because-

   9. JRJoe Rogan20:33

      (gasps)

   10. MZMariana van Zeller20:34

       ... you know, they're very social and, uh...

   11. JRJoe Rogan20:37

       "Baby apes are being stolen for pets."

   12. MZMariana van Zeller20:39

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan20:39

       "Little is being done to stop it."

   14. MZMariana van Zeller20:40

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan20:40

       $550,000 trade-

   16. MZMariana van Zeller20:41

       For baby gorillas.

   17. JRJoe Rogan20:42

       ... ban for Asian, uh, African great apes in China, Middle East, and Pakistan."

   18. MZMariana van Zeller20:47

       Pakistan, yeah.

   19. JRJoe Rogan20:48

       Wow. So they have to kill the whole family?

   20. MZMariana van Zeller20:50

       They kill the whole family, Joe. It's horrible. And the sad thing-

   21. JRJoe Rogan20:53

       Why, why do they have to kill the whole family?

   22. MZMariana van Zeller20:54

       Because, for example, if baby chimps... Uh, you can't carry your live chimp, for example, um, because they're too dangerous. And so it's the Batwa pygmies. We spoke, we did a whole chain of who, who hunts them, who kills them, who transports them, and then who buys them, and we started with, in the park with the Batwa pygmies. You had a g- a guest that I remember when I was doing research for this story, I listened to. Didn't you have a guest here-

   23. JRJoe Rogan21:18

       Justin Haskin.

   24. MZMariana van Zeller21:19

       ... who talked, yeah, who did a story about that?

   25. JRJoe Rogan21:21

       Fights For The Forgotten.

   26. MZMariana van Zeller21:21

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan21:21

       Yeah.

   28. MZMariana van Zeller21:22

       So the pygmies, you know, they've sort of lost their home, the, which is the forest, the Congolese government says they can't be there, and they have no money and no schools and no education and nothing, just desperate situation. So these people come out and say, "If you get us a baby chimp, we'll pay you $10." $10 for a baby chimp. And they go out, and the problem with baby chimps is that until they're five year old, five years old, they live at the hip of the mother, like always next to the mother. It's the way they, their family is. And so enable, to be able to take and kidnap the child, they have to kill the whole family because the, the estimate, the average is like 10 chimps have to be killed in order to be able to take away one baby.

   29. JRJoe Rogan22:05

       Because they'll attack?

   30. MZMariana van Zeller22:06

       Because they'll attack, yeah.
8. 23:43 – 30:15

   Big cats and selfie tourism: drugged tigers, private menageries, and why people want this

   1. JRJoe Rogan23:43

      I went to, uh, a tiger sanctuary in Thailand-

   2. MZMariana van Zeller23:46

      Uh-huh.

   3. JRJoe Rogan23:47

      ... with my family a few years back, and uh-... the beginning is kinda cool, 'cause the beginning, you're around the- the kittens.

   4. MZMariana van Zeller23:54

      Mm-hmm.

   5. JRJoe Rogan23:54

      And the cubs are, like, super energetic, and they're jumping around and attacking things, these little tiny tigers. They're really cool. But it's just like, "Wow, is there-" And there's a lot of people in the, in the room with the, make sure that the tigers don't go crazy, and they're little.

   6. MZMariana van Zeller24:08

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan24:08

      And then it gets to a slightly larger tiger, and there's men with sticks, and you could sit there. There's like a picture of my daughter when she was 10. She's like sitting there smiling.

   8. MZMariana van Zeller24:16

      (laughs)

   9. JRJoe Rogan24:16

      She's sitting next to a tiger, a small tiger.

   10. MZMariana van Zeller24:19

       Yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan24:19

       It's like 40 pounds or something like that.

   12. MZMariana van Zeller24:20

       Mm-hmm.

   13. JRJoe Rogan24:20

       Then, eh, when they get bigger, they're drugged.

   14. MZMariana van Zeller24:23

       Mm-hmm.

   15. JRJoe Rogan24:23

       So these people go in the cage with this massive tiger, and the tiger is just like, "Grr."

   16. MZMariana van Zeller24:28

       Yeah, yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan24:29

       They're just all fucking heroined out, and these people take selfies. And it was so sad. I'm like, "We have to leave. I'm so depressed."

   18. MZMariana van Zeller24:36

       Do you remember the name of that place?

   19. JRJoe Rogan24:37

       I do not.

   20. MZMariana van Zeller24:38

       Mm-hmm, 'cause we did-

   21. JRJoe Rogan24:39

       It was in, it was in, uh, Chiang Mai.

   22. MZMariana van Zeller24:41

       Yeah. Yeah, it's really sad, and the babies are also taken from their mothers.

   23. JRJoe Rogan24:45

       Yeah.

   24. MZMariana van Zeller24:45

       It's just, you're not supposed to be handling baby cubs that young.

   25. JRJoe Rogan24:49

       Yes.

   26. MZMariana van Zeller24:49

       All of it is bad.

   27. JRJoe Rogan24:50

       Exactly, it's all bad.

   28. MZMariana van Zeller24:51

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan24:51

       But it's just like, I didn't realize they were drugged.

   30. MZMariana van Zeller24:54

       Mm.
9. 30:15 – 40:50

   Season highlights: hash trafficking, Portugal’s decriminalization model, and US incentives to incarcerate

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:15

      Um, what else did you, uh, cover this season?

   2. MZMariana van Zeller30:18

      This season was a good one. You know, we started the first episode, we went back to my hometown, Portugal, uh, we did an episode on hash, hash trafficking.

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:26

      Oh.

   4. MZMariana van Zeller30:26

      Um, it's, uh... Most Americans don't know a lot about hash, actually, but, um-

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:31

      Most Americans, you don't know. (laughs)

   6. MZMariana van Zeller30:38

      (laughs) . But it's the first drug that people in the- in Europe usually try.

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:43

      Yeah.

   8. MZMariana van Zeller30:43

      Um, it's the marijuana of Europe, we'd say, or the rest of the world actually.

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:46

      Well, it is THC, right?

   10. MZMariana van Zeller30:47

       It is, yeah.

   11. JRJoe Rogan30:48

       Yeah.

   12. MZMariana van Zeller30:48

       It's from the resin glands, so it's-

   13. JRJoe Rogan30:49

       Yeah. It's just super, super-duper potent.

   14. MZMariana van Zeller30:52

       Super potent, yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan30:53

       Yeah.

   16. MZMariana van Zeller30:53

       So it's, uh, the first drug I tried and the first drug that any of my friends in Portugal tried. And, you know, back then, when I was a kid and trying hash for the first time, I always sort of wondered, "Where does this come from?" And we knew that it was Morocco, everybody knows that the majority of hash in the world comes from Morocco, but now I thought, "Well, I'm... The unique opportunity to actually go and try to figure out, out how it gets here." And so we started in Portugal and, um, I reached out to a bunch of my girlfriends in Portugal and said, "Hey, let's meet at this time in the rocks where we used to, like, hang out and hide and smoke hash (laughs) and, uh, and, uh... and we'll film a scene of us talking about while we're smoking." So I actually smoked on camera for the first time-

   17. JRJoe Rogan31:34

       Hmm.

   18. MZMariana van Zeller31:34

       ... did drugs on camera.

   19. JRJoe Rogan31:35

       In Portugal, it's all decriminalized, though, correct?

   20. MZMariana van Zeller31:37

       Yeah. It's been decriminalized since 2001, so-

   21. JRJoe Rogan31:39

       Yeah.

   22. MZMariana van Zeller31:39

       ... completely legal to do.

   23. JRJoe Rogan31:40

       And it's an amazing success story.

   24. MZMariana van Zeller31:42

       Amazing success story.

   25. JRJoe Rogan31:42

       Terms of addiction, crime-

   26. MZMariana van Zeller31:45

       Mm-hmm.

   27. JRJoe Rogan31:45

       ... violence-

   28. MZMariana van Zeller31:45

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan31:45

       ... everything went down.

   30. MZMariana van Zeller31:46

       HIV rates-
10. 40:50 – 47:42

    Inside the assassin economy: LA hitman encounter and South Africa’s ‘inkabi’ killings

    1. MZMariana van Zeller40:50

       We did an episode on assassins this season as well.

    2. JRJoe Rogan40:53

       Oh, really?

    3. MZMariana van Zeller40:54

       Yeah. That was-

    4. JRJoe Rogan40:55

       Oh, I like-

    5. MZMariana van Zeller40:55

       ... fucking wild. That was insane. This being ... I mean, obviously it's, it's a subject matter that I've wanted to do for a long time, but almost an impossible one to do for many reasons, as you can imagine. But we actually found ... All started with an interview that we did with an assassin in LA.

    6. JRJoe Rogan41:12

       Yeah.

    7. MZMariana van Zeller41:12

       Um, about 15 minutes from my house in LA and, uh, we have a contact in LA that, um, whenever we're looking at, at the black markets, we contact him and ask him, "Hey, do you know anyone who's basically making meth or drugs or guns or whatnot?" And, you know, in the off chance that he knew an assassin, we contacted him and he said he actually did. He knew a guy. Um, he didn't think he was gonna talk to us, but maybe he did because he was close to him and, and eventually this guy agreed to talk to us and we met him on the corner and as we're driving there, so we're driving there with our local contact that's taking us to meet this guy and he told us, "Hey, be very careful. This guy is like ..." The, the way he said it is, like, he's bipolar kinda. Like, he acts as if he's bipolar. One moment he's happy and the next he can just freak out and nobody knows why. He's really hard, difficult to deal with and I, I asked him, "Are you sure he's an assassin?" Or w- is it possible that he's just boasting? 'Cause that happens sometimes. And he said, "No, no, no. I've seen this guy being offered $80,000 to go and kill someone."... and I know this is what he does. Everybody knows this guy, you know-

    8. JRJoe Rogan42:20

       Wow.

    9. MZMariana van Zeller42:20

       ... in his community and his group. Um-

    10. JRJoe Rogan42:22

        So he operates in America?

    11. MZMariana van Zeller42:24

        He does, yeah. A- and I asked him where. He's b- based in LA, but he says it's all over the United States mainly.

    12. JRJoe Rogan42:30

        Wow.

    13. MZMariana van Zeller42:31

        And he... Yeah, he sh- as soon as I met him, he took out his gun and he said, "You guys, if you g- if this is a fucking setup, you guys are all d- it's gonna be real easy to kill you all right now." And it was me and three or four other people. And, uh, my fear, we told him we're not a s- it's not a setup. (laughs) So he's like, "I just came here because I trust my, my buddy, but you know, you don't fuck me. If the police shows up, you guys are all dead." So we're in a corner of LA close to downtown, and I'm constantly looking at the end of the road thinking, "If the police shows up by, for any reason-

    14. JRJoe Rogan43:05

        Right.

    15. MZMariana van Zeller43:05

        ... he's gonna think it's us."

    16. JRJoe Rogan43:07

        Yeah.

    17. MZMariana van Zeller43:07

        And this is not good. So yeah, it w- it was a quick interview, but a chilling one.

    18. JRJoe Rogan43:12

        How many people has this guy whacked?

    19. MZMariana van Zeller43:14

        (sighs) He said, he said more than 10. Um, he didn't say exactly how many. I asked him. Um, I also asked, started asking him personal questions about, "Do you have a family?" 'Cause he was saying he doesn't kill m- w- women or children. I asked him, "But do you have kids? And do you realize, like what would it be f- like for your kids to live without you if you're doing-

    20. JRJoe Rogan43:34

        Yeah.

    21. MZMariana van Zeller43:34

        ... the same to other kids, right?" He got really mad at my questions and said, "Don't fucking ask me emotional questions," or s- something like that, "personal questions," and-

    22. JRJoe Rogan43:42

        Mm-hmm.

    23. MZMariana van Zeller43:42

        ... "This interview is over," and left.

    24. JRJoe Rogan43:44

        What was his background?

    25. MZMariana van Zeller43:46

        He said, uh, he came from a really tough family, um, and that, yeah, involved in drugs and guns and all of it, and he, I think, realized early on that he could do this and a lot of other people can't, and he was able to do it and he gets well paid and he does it.

    26. JRJoe Rogan44:03

        How does one even apply to a job like that?

    27. MZMariana van Zeller44:05

        I... Yeah. And, and you... I mean, that was my fear when we started looking into this story because it's a little bit of a Hollywood myth, right?

    28. JRJoe Rogan44:11

        Yeah.

    29. MZMariana van Zeller44:11

        Like, like, "This doesn't really exist," and all those stories that you can go on the dark web and find an assassin, most of that is bullshit, so that was my fear. But I do trust this contact and, and we actually then ended up going to South Africa that has one of the highest assassination rates in the world and spent time with a bunch of different, um, inkabi which are, as they are called in South Africa, um, and that was fucking crazy as well. So we spent time with one, his name is JoJo, young guy, and his story is insane. And, and that, that... He was a lot nicer, (laughs) a lot more approachable, but has killed like over 30 people and, uh, and gets paid $1,500 per hit.

    30. JRJoe Rogan44:48

        Phew.
11. 47:42 – 57:00

    Cartel access and chaos: Marines, coked-up sicarios, and near-death accidents on set

    1. JRJoe Rogan47:42

       How do you feel safe in a place like that?

    2. MZMariana van Zeller47:44

       Actually, I see, uh, it's... I sometimes feel, um, in certain countries safer... Um, in Sinaloa, for example, if you are... If you've give, been given the green light to go into the cartel, the territory controlled (claps hands) by the cartel to talk to cartel members, um, and it takes, you know, weeks, months, sometimes years to get that access, once we're under their protection, we're under their protection. Like, w- we have their protection to be there. But, you know, then certain things happen. Like, uh, we were filming in Sinaloa once and...... uh, we're filming these sicarios and they had their walkie-talkies. And, um, so they're communicating with the whole group and they know everybody that comes in and out of their territory. And suddenly, they started panicking because the Marines had a helicopter coming th- their way. And the Marines in Mexico are known to shoot first and ask questions after. And they started freaking out, and they basically jumped into the cars and left us, and we didn't know what to do. Should we go after them and they're gonna think we're s- part of the group?

    3. JRJoe Rogan48:47

       Right.

    4. MZMariana van Zeller48:47

       And they can start shooting at us? Or should we stay behind, but we were in an open area, in a sort of forested area. Should we try to hide? And then we're gonna really look suspicious. (laughs) So it was, uh, it was crazy.

    5. JRJoe Rogan49:00

       What did you do?

    6. MZMariana van Zeller49:00

       We got in a car and followed them.

    7. JRJoe Rogan49:02

       Wow.

    8. MZMariana van Zeller49:02

       And then spent the day with them doing cocaine all day-

    9. JRJoe Rogan49:05

       Wow.

    10. MZMariana van Zeller49:05

        ... because it wasn't safe for us to leave until the night.

    11. JRJoe Rogan49:08

        So they just do cocaine all the time?

    12. MZMariana van Zeller49:09

        They do a lot of cocaine. And funny story.

    13. JRJoe Rogan49:12

        (exhales)

    14. MZMariana van Zeller49:12

        My director of photography, Fred Manoux, uh, who was the director of photog- photography for Bourdain on Parts Unknown before. And he, um, he got ... We were filming this scene and we'd driven into the Sierra Madre Mountains, and then we had to walk for a mile or two to a place where they felt comfortable, um, showing us their guns. And they were going to start shooting and they would give us the interview of what, why ... It was the story about the American guns flowing down South and, um, how they're used in the violence. And we're walking there, and suddenly Fred basically turns to us and says, "I don't feel good." And he had a massive case of, what is it that you call it? The revenge, the ...

    15. JRJoe Rogan49:54

        Oh, Montezuma's Revenge.

    16. MZMariana van Zeller49:55

        Montezuma's Revenge. (laughs) Massive case. And so we walked to the place. Fred's on the floor. They managed to put, like, some sort of cloth on the floor for him. He's, like, walk- (laughs) on the floor, can barely breathe, is, like, puking and going to the bathroom, and all of it is happening at the same time. And the guy is constantly offering him cocaine and telling him, "Do it." (laughs)

    17. JRJoe Rogan50:17

        (laughs) This will fix you, my friend.

    18. MZMariana van Zeller50:19

        You have no idea what ... Do this. I am telling you. Fred did not take the cocaine, but, uh ...

    19. JRJoe Rogan50:24

        Would the cocaine have helped him, you thinks?

    20. MZMariana van Zeller50:26

        He's, he was absolutely sure the cocaine would have helped him. I don't know.

    21. JRJoe Rogan50:29

        What if it did?

    22. MZMariana van Zeller50:29

        Yeah. (laughs)

    23. JRJoe Rogan50:30

        What if that's the cure?

    24. MZMariana van Zeller50:31

        (laughs) What else is in the cocaine? We don't know.

    25. JRJoe Rogan50:34

        Oh, these guys are probably getting pure cocaine.

    26. MZMariana van Zeller50:36

        Oh, yeah. I'm sure. Yeah.

    27. JRJoe Rogan50:38

        I mean, they ... Why would they cut it in squares?

    28. MZMariana van Zeller50:39

        And they're snorting it all day long.

    29. JRJoe Rogan50:40

        Oh my God.

    30. MZMariana van Zeller50:41

        And then it wasn't, it wasn't actually a very good idea for us to stay with, uh, them for so long. It was a learning lesson for all of us because that night we were filming with them in a bunker where they kept a lot of their guns. And, um, and one of them had been snorting cocaine all day and, um, basically pulled the trigger on the floor. And the bullet came out just, like, two inches from Fred's head because he was in the bunker, right in that hole.
12. 57:00 – 1:16:29

    Counterfeit pharmaceuticals: cartel coercion, Mexico border pharmacies, and US drug pricing failures

    1. MZMariana van Zeller57:00

       Ten. Um, eight are now on Hulu, two more are coming soon. Um, but, uh, one of them... Another one, cartel, um, involvement, is about fake pharmaceutical pills.

    2. JRJoe Rogan57:13

       Mm-hmm.

    3. MZMariana van Zeller57:13

       That's really interesting. We spent time with a group called La Union in Mexico City, where 80% of their job, of their money right now comes from fake pharmaceutical pills. And, uh, yeah, I mean, they're making these pills. And then we went to India as well, which is another source of pharmaceutical pills. You have like 40,000 online pharmacies that you can go to and buy prescription drugs without a prescription. So a lot of Americans are doing that because it's much cheaper. I think it's something like 20 million Americans are using the black market for their pills, for their drugs, because they can't afford them here, which is crazy.

    4. JRJoe Rogan57:44

       20 million?

    5. MZMariana van Zeller57:45

       20 million. It's crazy. And people that can't afford, that need these medications to survive, and they can't afford them here, um, because we have the highest drug prices in the entire world.

    6. JRJoe Rogan57:54

       And so when you say fake, is it, um, it's not manufactured by, you know, Pfizer or whatever, but is it the same components?

    7. MZMariana van Zeller58:03

       It looks exactly the same, but a lot of these pills don't actually have any active ingredients. So we spent time with a guy making 20,000 pills a night out of this little, you know, back house with a machine, a pill, a pill presser. And he was, it was just calcium and food dye to make it look the color, whatever color he wanted, and he was selling it as amoxicillin, and you know, very likely ending up in American homes, because they ship it all around the world.

    8. JRJoe Rogan58:31

       Wow.

    9. MZMariana van Zeller58:32

       Yeah. And, and in that case, um, you know, the good luck of the buyer is that it was just calcium, but in many cases it gets mixed with cement and rat poison and all sorts of things. And-

    10. JRJoe Rogan58:44

        They don't give a fuck.

    11. MZMariana van Zeller58:45

        They don't give a fuck. And even worse is the cartel in Mexico we found out... Um, there's a great LA Times investigation on this, and then we sort of started doing our own investigation, but they're mixing these drugs, uh, with fentanyl and meth. So I think it was something like 70% of the drugs that they bought and tested had actually had meth and fentanyl, and Americans were crossing the border into Mexico-

    12. JRJoe Rogan59:08

        (sighs)

    13. MZMariana van Zeller59:08

        ... to buy these drugs and then dying.

    14. JRJoe Rogan59:10

        Jesus.

    15. MZMariana van Zeller59:10

        It's insane. But it's all, again, it's like easy for us to blame the cartel and other people for doing this, but it's all our, our fault. It's the-

    16. JRJoe Rogan59:18

        Agreed.

    17. MZMariana van Zeller59:18

        ... broken system that we have in our country. Why, why are we paying... You know, why are we... This woman that we filmed with, she was paying $700 for this medication that she needs, and she couldn't afford it, her health insurance wasn't covering it. So she would go across the border and pay $60 for it in Mexico. Of course she-

    18. JRJoe Rogan59:35

        Is any of it the real medication?

    19. MZMariana van Zeller59:37

        Yeah, some of it is. Um-

    20. JRJoe Rogan59:39

        How's... Is there a way to tell?

    21. MZMariana van Zeller59:40

        And they're real pharmacies, uh, but what we've-

    22. JRJoe Rogan59:43

        So some of the real pharmacies have fake drugs?

    23. MZMariana van Zeller59:45

        So that's what's so interesting is that even pharmacies that are real, that are completely authentic and legitimate and that... There's towns, there's a town that we filmed at called Algodones, for example, that's on the other side of the Arizona border, that is, uh, that has more hospitals and orthodontists and optician, opticians... How do you say the doc... Glasses?

    24. JRJoe Rogan1:00:05

        Optometrists?

    25. MZMariana van Zeller1:00:06

        Optometrists (laughs) than anywhere else in the world. Um, it's basically you, you drive around and it's like, doctor's office, pharmacy, uh, optometrist, all of it. Uh, and it's all catering to Americans, right? And so, uh, vast numbers of Americans come every year and buy their drugs there. And they're pharmacies, they are chained pharmacies that look... That could be a CVS, but in Mexico. It's not a CVS, but it could be a sort of brand name that you recognize in Mexico. But what we did with the cartel is we were trying to figure out how they get their medications in the, these shelves. And we filmed one cartel member, he allowed us to film, we couldn't go inside, but I had him... He had a mic, so I was able to listen to everything from the car. He we- he goes into a pharmacy and basically tells the woman there, like this... And the meds look... We saw them making them, they look exactly like the real thing, the packaging, everything. Some of it actually comes from the legitimate places that they steal from the factories, like the packaging and all of it. Um, but they basically tell him, "Okay, you put this on your shelves, and if you don't, we're gonna burn your phar- pharmacy." So we s- we heard that, we saw that.

    26. JRJoe Rogan1:01:06

        (exhales)

    27. MZMariana van Zeller1:01:07

        And so a lot of them are forced to carry them-

    28. JRJoe Rogan1:01:10

        And they're forced to carry fake drugs?

    29. MZMariana van Zeller1:01:12

        ... by the cartel. Yeah.

    30. JRJoe Rogan1:01:12

        And do they have any idea what's in them when they're selling them or they just ...

Episode duration: 2:12:11