The Joe Rogan ExperienceJoe Rogan Experience #2567 - Mariana van Zeller
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
150 min read · 29,559 words- 0:00 – 0:02
Intro
- JRJoe Rogan
[upbeat music]
- 0:02 – 3:38
Romance scams and the loneliness epidemic as the real fuel
- JRJoe Rogan
Joe Rogan Podcast, check it out.
- MZMariana van Zeller
The Joe Rogan Experience.
- JRJoe Rogan
Train by day, Joe Rogan Podcast by night. All day. [upbeat music] [laughs] So good to see you.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Hi, Joe. So good to see you too.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, every time I watch one of your new programs, I, I get anxiety.
- MZMariana van Zeller
[laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm like, "Please don't die. Don't get hurt. What are you doing?" [laughs] You're so-
- MZMariana van Zeller
This one was a walk in the park, though
- JRJoe Rogan
... you're s- it kind of is a walk in a park, but not really-
- MZMariana van Zeller
No, not really
- JRJoe Rogan
... because you went to fucking Africa to meet scammers. I was-
- MZMariana van Zeller
To confront my scammer. [laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
[laughs] So your new show is all about romance scams.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And, uh, I was aware of these because I watched a, a show a long time ago about this poor, lonely man who kept getting scammed.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Uh, he thought that there was this woman, and he was in contact with her, and he flew to Europe to meet her twice, and both times she came up with some reason why she couldn't be there.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Some emergency came up-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... and, you know-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Very typical
- JRJoe Rogan
... and this guy had given her hundreds of thousands of dollars-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... and drained his account.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And his, his daughter was so sad. She's like, "I keep trying to tell him, but he won't listen."
- MZMariana van Zeller
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And you see these poor people that are so vulnerable that just, they're lonely, and they really believe.
- MZMariana van Zeller
They really, really believe.
- 3:38 – 8:36
How the “Jon Bon Jovi” scam becomes believable (and why victims stay)
- MZMariana van Zeller
I think the one that was scamming Leslie was definitely better than mine. Uh-
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that the one who was pretending he was Jon Bon Jovi?
- MZMariana van Zeller
Bon Jovi, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. [laughs]
- MZMariana van Zeller
So again, this-
- JRJoe Rogan
Again.
- MZMariana van Zeller
I, I know, but that's the thing. You tell that story and you think w- this guy shows up on her DM and says, "Hey, I'm Jon Bon Jovi. Give me money." That's not how it went, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm.
- MZMariana van Zeller
She liked an account. So it was funny because it was in the middle of me doing Super Scam Me that I get an, a, a, a message from Leslie, and I get dozens of these messages every week because I, I've done a lot of reporting on this. People think I'm sort of like the 911 for scams. And in one ... It was right in the middle of the project, I get a, a message from her, and it was that. "Look, I've been talking to a guy for almost a, a year. I initially thought he was Jon Bon Jovi. I'm not so sure anymore."
- JRJoe Rogan
[laughs]
- MZMariana van Zeller
And of course the response is, "Wait, what? Did you really think you were talking to Jon Bon Jovi?" But then you listen to the story, and then you actually meet this person.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MZMariana van Zeller
And it is much more nuanced than that. She liked an Instagram account. She had, was brand new on Instagram, um, liked an account that had what looked like a check mark, a verified account she thought, and she commented. She's been a fan of this guy since she was 14 years old, posters of him all around her room, and immediately he DM'd her back and said, "Hey, I saw you commented. I love connecting with my fans." Perfectly reasonable. Perfectly normal.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. Right.
- MZMariana van Zeller
"I ... What's your favorite music? What's your favorite song? When did you start listening to my music?" That kind of conversation.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MZMariana van Zeller
It started normally, and then it wa- it was weeks of this, and then he started paying attention to her and interested in what her life was like and "Tell me about you, and what do you do, and what are your interests?" And then they'd, they talked for months and months, and sh- he would remember things that happened in the early weeks. And this is a woman who leads a very lonely life, there's, there's the loneliness epidemic, who's sort of estranged from her husband, who doesn't really have anyone who's interested in her life, quite frankly-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right
- MZMariana van Zeller
... or who sees her or understands her or wants to know about her.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MZMariana van Zeller
And finally there was w- somebody who, even if he wasn't Jon Bon Jovi, was somebody who cared, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MZMariana van Zeller
And it lasted months of this, and then she said to him one day, she knew that he had a concert. She couldn't afford it. She went online. The tickets were ridiculously expensive, and she said, "It's so sad that I really wanna see you in concert, always have wanted to, and I can't." This was like seven months into their relationship. And then he says, "Well, uh, if you want, I do these meet and greets," which is also reasonable. They actually do. Celebrities do these. "And you can pay for ... I'll give you a discount. I'll put you in touch with management, and you can pay, like, $100. I'm coming to Louisiana, and you can come to one of these me- meet and greets and meet me in person." And- At this point, I'm sorry, but it is believable. And also, he would send her videos. You saw some of these videos.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, the AI videos.
- MZMariana van Zeller
The AI videos.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MZMariana van Zeller
And some of them, I mean, they're a little robotic, but they could be real. And it's, "Hi, Leslie, good morning. How are you doing, my sunshine, my love? I, I, you know, I- I- I'm curious about your life." And he would say to her, "Look, I am surrounded by people who are yes people, who are people who are with me a lot because of my m- money and fame, and I just really appreciate connecting with people who are outside the bubble, who are normal folks."
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MZMariana van Zeller
And so it, it is kind of, it's not as insane as, like, Jon Bon Jovi showed up and said, "Hey, I want $1,000," right? But then what happens, I think, in a lot of these scams is that once you're in, once you're committed to a relationship, once that has an impact on your life and has made your life better, it is very difficult to then, you know, come to the realization that this might not be real. I, I equate it a little bit to gambling. You know, when gamblers lose a lot of money, and in their heads they're always thinking, "Wait, it might have been my unlucky day. If I go to the casino today, this might be my really lucky day," right? You, and the more you lose, the more you're gambling because you're trying to get that money back. It's a little bit, I think, that same idea. It's also a dopamine rush. Like, every time you get a DM, every time you're love bombed, you're, there's a dopamine rush there.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- 8:36 – 11:28
AI companionship goes mainstream: ‘AI date’ cafes and Ex Machina fears
- MZMariana van Zeller
You know there are coffee shops now, I just found out this, this out in New York, where they actually have, like, iPads. Did you know this? iPads with fake people for companionship, that you go to the coffee shop and you grab an iPad and you have a whole conversation with an AI-
- JRJoe Rogan
What?
- MZMariana van Zeller
... AI agent.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, New York is-
- MZMariana van Zeller
I didn't know this
- JRJoe Rogan
... uh, weirdly enough, one of the loneliest places.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Because no one is friends with anyone. Like, my friend Jim, who lives in a building in New York, it's like, you know, 40 stories or something like that. He's like, "I don't know anybody in this building."
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, think about that.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm, I'm in, I don't know my neighbor. Every time we look at each other we're like, "So I don't, hey, how you doing?" Like, like-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... no one knows anybody.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
And there's hundreds of people stacked on top of each other. That is an odd way to live.
- MZMariana van Zeller
That is an odd way to live, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
What is this, Jamie?
- MZMariana van Zeller
Oh, Cafe for AI.
- JRJoe Rogan
Eva AI opens the world's first cafe for AI dates this cuffing season. What is cuffing season?
- SPSpeaker
Ugh.
- JRJoe Rogan
What does that mean?
- MZMariana van Zeller
Uh, I have no idea. What is that?
- SPSpeaker
Uh, it's link, it's like linking up time.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is that what it means?
- SPSpeaker
Cuffing, you know, it's another way to say fucking.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Oh.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, having sex?
- SPSpeaker
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- 11:28 – 13:04
Men, shame, and the ‘double victimization’ of scam victims
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah, men. Do you know what that's interesting too, in terms of scams? Because, as you saw in our film, y- the majority of the w- people we spoke to were women, but actually men are as, are as likely to f- falling victim to these scams as women, but they just have a lot more shame around it, so they're less likely to talk about it.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- MZMariana van Zeller
So we actually spoke to a lo- a lot of men, but they just don't wanna be on camera because there's so much shame around this.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, they don't, no man wants to be a sucker.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah. And-
- JRJoe Rogan
If a woman's a sucker, everyone feels bad for her.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
If a guy's a sucker, you're like, "You fucking dumbass."
- MZMariana van Zeller
I don't, I wish people felt bad for, for women. It wasn't Leslie's case, and it's certainly not the case for a lot of the victims that I speak to.
- JRJoe Rogan
They don't feel bad for them?
- MZMariana van Zeller
No, a- actually, this is another horrible thing. It, it's what I call is there's a sort of double victimization, right? Because initially, not only do you, you know, your heart is broken, you lost all your money, but then you go back home or you go to your friends and you talk about this, and the first response is, "How stupid could you be?" Right? It's the humiliation, it's the shame-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- MZMariana van Zeller
... that comes with it, s- which, they use it to their advantage, right, the scammers. Th- that they use the silence to their advantage.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you ever get those random text messages that say, "Hi, I haven't seen you in so long. What have you been up to?" And you look at the number, you're like, "Who the fuck is this?"
- MZMariana van Zeller
Absolutely.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's always an Android phone.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right? So, like, that's one way to check.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
And then it's always, like, something weird, like, "I've been craving lobster rolls."
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Do you wanna meet up?
- MZMariana van Zeller
[laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, what? What is this?
- MZMariana van Zeller
And also the, the job, uh, offers.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, yeah.
- MZMariana van Zeller
You get those-
- JRJoe Rogan
Get those all day
- MZMariana van Zeller
... all the time.
- JRJoe Rogan
I'm approved for so many loans.
- 13:04 – 15:37
Saying yes to scams: call centers, remote-access tricks, and moral rationalizations
- MZMariana van Zeller
So actually, Super Scam Me started like that. The idea was that I was gonna say yes to every single scam that came my way, and for the first few weeks we filmed it that way. So I would answer all those text messages.
- JRJoe Rogan
What happens?
- MZMariana van Zeller
It was really interesting. So it was a lot of phone calls with scammers. Uh, one of the most interesting conversations we had with, was with an Indian call center, who told me that there was a bug in my Apple computer, and he could fix it. One of those-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh
- MZMariana van Zeller
... right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, that's nice of him.
- MZMariana van Zeller
It was an Apple support. Yes, very nice of him. So, so kind. And all I had to do was download this s- software.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- MZMariana van Zeller
And once you download the software-
- JRJoe Rogan
Simple
- MZMariana van Zeller
... he's in my computer. And then you go to the payment, and once they're in my computer, they can see the number that I'm putting for my credit card, and all the details.
- JRJoe Rogan
Ah.
- MZMariana van Zeller
So they have access to that, right? So-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you do it?
- MZMariana van Zeller
I'm trying to go-
- JRJoe Rogan
Did you go through the whole thing?
- MZMariana van Zeller
I'm trying to go as far as I can without actually revealing a credit card. So I get to the point of the credit card, and I turn to him, and this had been, like, over an hour on the phone with this guy, and I say, "Hey, so this is the deal. I'm actually a journalist. My name is Mariana. Uh, but I don't want to get you in trouble. I kind, I know this is a scam. I just wanna talk to you, dude." And he actually did. He stayed on the phone with me. I try this a lot. It didn't always work.
- JRJoe Rogan
[laughs]
- MZMariana van Zeller
But in this case [laughs] , this guy actually stayed on the phone with me-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- MZMariana van Zeller
... for a long time. And he told me, "Look, we work, y- we're forced to do..." In, in his case, he said he was forced, but I think he was doing it for the money. But he basically said... I said, "Don't you feel bad about this? I mean, you're stealing money from people." And his answer was, "Look, in America, everybody has more money, so I don't really feel bad." I was like, "What is a lot of money?" Be- oh, he said he doesn't steal from poor people. Um, what's poor people? "Well, if I go into a bank, if I go into account, once I get access, I can see everything that's there. If you have less than $1,000, I'm not gonna steal from you. But if you have more, that means you're rich."
- JRJoe Rogan
Whoa.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah. It's, yeah, it was interesting. It's, yeah, the, I mean, the, the money, it's so different, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, that is the, the very s- bizarre statistic that shocks people when you tell it to them. I think, I used to think it's $34,000, but I think it's $50,000. If you make $50,000-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Mm
- JRJoe Rogan
... you are in the top 1% of the world.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Hmm. 50,000, yeah. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's-
- MZMariana van Zeller
It's, yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... that's dark.
- 15:37 – 22:23
Inside Southeast Asia’s scam compounds: trafficking, torture, and ‘scam cities’
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah. And I do know that there are people that get, they literally get kidnapped and forced-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Mm-hmm
- JRJoe Rogan
... to work in these scam centers.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Through threat of death and-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Torture
- JRJoe Rogan
... torture.
- MZMariana van Zeller
We did a story about that for the last season of Trafficked.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MZMariana van Zeller
About these scam compounds. We actually visited one of the, the scam city, a city that has a lot of these scam compounds, and interviewed one of the main guys there. And it was cr- and spoke to a lot of the victims. And I mean, it was people being beaten and tortured and forced. There was a guy, we'll never forget, who jumped off, like, the sixth floor of his building, um, because he knew that he could die, but he thought it was better to die than to live in that, those conditions. He basically broke both his hips and his legs, and when I met him, he was in an, a wheelchair. He was rescued, thank God, but, uh, it was unsure if he could ever walk again. And, uh, and then there was a woman, that's was a really dark one, uh, who we spoke to. She's sort of a, uh, the model, so she's the person that when they want to do video calls, she'd come on camera. But they had, at the time, even back then, this was two years ago, they had this AI technology that would go superimpose over her face, and they needed a woman because of the mannerisms, right? Or, and, and the voice, I guess. But they had this AI thing, program, and it's over her face, but if she moved just a little bit, they would, uh, it would distort, basically. And her boss would beat her and all that stuff, but she'd also been raped by her boss and all his friends. They'd bring people in to rape her, and she was stuck in this horrible situation. It's dark.
- JRJoe Rogan
Where are these happening mostly?
- MZMariana van Zeller
Myanmar.
- JRJoe Rogan
Myanmar.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Um, Myanmar and Cambodia-
- JRJoe Rogan
[sniffs]
- MZMariana van Zeller
... uh, were the two main spots. But now, because there's been a crackdown in both countries, particularly in Cambodia, they are spreading to other places like Dubai and other, other pla- uh, other places. But, um, but they still exist a lot in, in Myanmar, and Myanmar is a country at war. There's a large part of the country that is just controlled by different gr- rebel groups. The government doesn't really have much control of that region. So the scam compounds in these, you know, a lot of them are Chinese criminal gangs that operate these scam compounds. They're paying a fee. They're paying for the war, essentially. They're giving money to the rebels in order to be able to work and, you know, build these scam cities. But the scam city that I visited was, it was like a mini Macau. It was these high-rises, and it happened within a year or two. It went from flat, you know, regular forest jungle in Myanmar to skyscrapers, casinos. Um, you know, one of the places I visited was, um, in order to be able to talk to this ca- scam co- scam compound, the, the guy who sort of runs the city, we had to wine and dine him. Actually, he had to wine and dine us. He wanted to take us out and show us around, and he took us to this karaoke cafe, karaoke bar, that was like nothing I'd ever seen. It was, uh, screens all around. It looked like the future, but this is in one of the poorest countries on Earth with w- a war raging around, and I'm in this sort of the future. And it's this, yeah, this karaoke bar with girls scantily dressed and drugs being served and alcohol. And, uh, and we had to stay there, and I sang Whitney Houston. [laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
[laughs] What song?
- MZMariana van Zeller
I think it was The, The Greatest Love of All-
- JRJoe Rogan
Ah
- MZMariana van Zeller
... which is usually the one that I sing. [laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
That's what I was gonna guess.
- MZMariana van Zeller
[laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MZMariana van Zeller
And I'm one of those people that thinks they can s- sing well, but really can't. [laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
[laughs]
- MZMariana van Zeller
But it was fun.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MZMariana van Zeller
This was one of those unforgettable nights, and then the next day we interviewed the scam guy at the compound.
- JRJoe Rogan
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- 22:23 – 25:57
‘Blood slave’ horror stories and the scale of global scam labor
- SPSpeaker
How typical is this story? This is the opening article of an article about victims and villains-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Mm-hmm
- SPSpeaker
... scam compounds.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
This is crazy.
- MZMariana van Zeller
What does it say?
- SPSpeaker
Uh, he was held against his will, tortured, and drained of his blood, and they would drain his blood up to seven times in a half year. That made him a blood slave-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Wow
- SPSpeaker
... to, to run these scams.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah. It's-
- JRJoe Rogan
What? Blood slave.
- MZMariana van Zeller
It's modern blood slavery.
- SPSpeaker
Right here. "In his case of a blood slave, journalists began to describe him."
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, okay.
- SPSpeaker
"He was tricked, kidnapped."
- JRJoe Rogan
So it says, "From his bed, he said he sought work as a security guard in China, but was tricked and apparently kidnapped, transported to Cambodia, and then sold into one of the country's many fortified scam compound facilities, where workers labor around the clock to extract money from people online."
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
"When he resisted, Li was beaten and tortured, and then passed from one scam operator to another. He claimed his captors finally began to drain large quantities of his blood-"
- MZMariana van Zeller
Why?
- JRJoe Rogan
"... seven times in half a year. In the hospital, he pointed weakly at an infusion bag above his head that was the size of each extraction, he said."
- MZMariana van Zeller
Wow.
- JRJoe Rogan
"In online articles, journalists began to describe his case that of a blood slave." So they're taking his blood for blood doping or for, for-
- MZMariana van Zeller
I've never heard
- JRJoe Rogan
... blood transfusions for other people?
- SPSpeaker
That part, that, that's insane.
- JRJoe Rogan
They're just taking it for, they're using his blood as money. Like, they're selling his blood probably.
- SPSpeaker
That's probably one of the scams they're doing, yeah, I would imagine.
- JRJoe Rogan
So they just, like, take everything. "What do you got, an extra kidney? Give me that."
- MZMariana van Zeller
Wow.
- JRJoe Rogan
"Chinese social media lit up with outrage and sympathy. Even government officials in China and Cambodia took notice. For a moment, Li seemed to embody the darkest truths about the criminal scam compounds spreading across parts of Southeast Asia."
- 25:57 – 29:50
Pig butchering: scripted grooming into fake investment platforms
- MZMariana van Zeller
... every day. It's insane. And a lot of it is done through from by, from these, they're called pig butchering compounds.
- JRJoe Rogan
Pig butchering.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- SPSpeaker
I was gonna ask you about that. I found a website talking about the pig butchering life cycle.
- MZMariana van Zeller
The pig butchering life cycle.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow. Organized criminals use highly scripted process and human trafficking-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Mm-hmm
- JRJoe Rogan
... to steal as much money as they can from individual victims. Pig slaughter. Ooh.
- SPSpeaker
Yeah, they li- they like, and it's like fattening up-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Do you know why it's called p- Yes. Exactly. It comes from the Ch- Chinese expression that means f- uh, sort of fattening the pig. So you fatten the pig, so you, you know, give a lot of love to your victim, or you, you know, pretend they're gonna get a lot of money. You build their confidence and trust, and then you slaughter them. Basically, you take away their money.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, look, there's a whole, uh, go f- to the top, please. There's a whole process. They go grooming the victims.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
They contact pig, pig butchering... Whoa, that's a dark word. Pig butchering targets, uh, through dating apps, social media platforms, or unsolicited text messages. Ah, like the ones I get. At some point, the scammer encourages a target to sift- shift the conversation to an encrypted messaging platform like WhatsApp or Telegram. They invest time in understanding the person's financial situation, family dynamics, and work to build a deep emotional connection. Scammers often spend weeks building these relationships. Then, then they introduce investment opportunities.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
They drop subtle hints about a once in a lifetime investment opportunity early in the relationship. They show pictures of a lavish lifestyle or talk about expensive purchases and experiences. Once scammers have gained pig butchering targets trust, they introduce an exclusive investment opportunity, often claiming they've achieved significant financial success through it. Then they establish credibility, make the scam seem real. Scammers share fake screenshots and trading platform dashboards, stories of friends or an uncle who knows how it all works and made massive profits, along with professional looking documents and websites, starting small to ease doubts. So they have like a whole-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Oh, yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... process they go through.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah, they have scripts.
- JRJoe Rogan
They do it slowly. They have scripts.
- MZMariana van Zeller
They have scripts that they stick to, and it's different-
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow
- MZMariana van Zeller
... accor- according to the people that they're talking to, what kind of victim that is. Uh, that, this is the scam. Pig butchering was what actually got... Remember there was that story of that, uh, bank, banker, the CEO of a bank in Kansas that, uh, ultimately went bankrupt because he had stolen $400 million-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes
- MZMariana van Zeller
... from the bank. Do you remember that story?
- JRJoe Rogan
And he got, he got scammed.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah, from the, it was pig butchering too. It was one of these fake crypto investments.
- JRJoe Rogan
How did they get him? What was-
- MZMariana van Zeller
It was a-
- JRJoe Rogan
Was it a romance thing?
- MZMariana van Zeller
No, it was this. It was an investment opportunity.
- 29:50 – 44:23
Why platforms profit: Meta’s scam-ad ecosystem and the ‘penalty bid’ controversy
- MZMariana van Zeller
I think the question should be why isn't our government doing more to protect us? Why are these online platforms, why don't they have, uh, uh, why aren't they accountable? They should be held accountable for allowing this to happen.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like which online platforms?
- MZMariana van Zeller
Um, I'll give you specifics.
- JRJoe Rogan
Okay.
- MZMariana van Zeller
There was an incredible Reuters investigation done last year where they got, they got a hold of internal Meta documents from Meta, and in the Meta documents, internal Meta documents, they estimated inside Meta the worker, the, the different departments estimated that there were 15 billion ads every single day that the users of their platforms, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, were exposed to around an estimated 15 billion scam ads every single day. Scams that were higher risk, that were, that ha- displayed clear signs of being fraudulent. They also estimated that s- s- they were, that year they projected that they would make $16 billion, this is in 2024, I believe, or 2023, I'm not sure, $16 billion worth in- ... of, of profit from scams and banned goods. That's 10% of their f- full profit at that time. So they're making a ton of money from this. And then, this is where it gets really worrisome to me. Because of their per- personalized ad, um, system, if a person clicks on a scam, the... You know those ads that you have, like Elon Musk holding a thing and saying investment opportunity, and then you click it, and you wanna see what it is, or... There's tons of these. I mean, there's gazillions of these out there. If you click it, you are more likely to be fed more of these ads. So it comes, starts with just maybe you're exposed to one, and then suddenly the next day you're exposed to 100 of these scams, right? So your reality starts being, you know, filled with scams. And then this is, I think, even the crazier part, is that if you report these as scams, which a lot of users do, I think it's 100,000 reports every single week, they, if they have a 95 or over certainty, Meta, if their system sees that there's a 95% certainty or over that these are scams, they remove them. If there's less than 95, let's say 94%, what they do is they give you a penalty fee, so you have to pay more, but they allow you to stay on the platform.
- JRJoe Rogan
What?
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yes.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wait a minute.
- MZMariana van Zeller
You can s- check that out, Jamie-
- JRJoe Rogan
So-
- MZMariana van Zeller
... that Reuters investigation
- JRJoe Rogan
... they're in on it, then.
- MZMariana van Zeller
They're making money. I mean, it just raises-
- JRJoe Rogan
But if, if you-
- MZMariana van Zeller
... lots of questions, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. If you're-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Making-
- JRJoe Rogan
... charging more money, that means you know something's wrong with this ad, so you want to cut.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
That's-
- MZMariana van Zeller
You're making more money from the illegitimate ads than you are from the legitimate ads-
- JRJoe Rogan
Is this-
- MZMariana van Zeller
... in terms of one-to-one.
- JRJoe Rogan
Is this because of a lack of regulation?
- MZMariana van Zeller
It is because of a lack of regulation.
- JRJoe Rogan
Lack of regulation-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... lack of oversight, and maybe perhaps something that emerged without any understanding of it before it was everywhere.
- MZMariana van Zeller
100%. I think it's our government-
- JRJoe Rogan
But they know.
- 44:23 – 1:07:19
Sextortion deaths and new proposals: making platforms legally accountable
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah, well, what they tell you is that there's no way of verifying. It's so hard. It's the same thing with scams on Meta. They say there are billions of these. How can we know what's right and what's not? There's a case I will not forget in terms... Going, just going back to scams real quick. Sextortion. Huge... You know what's sextortion?
- JRJoe Rogan
Sextortion?
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
So, like, sex tapes? Or what are they?
- MZMariana van Zeller
It's... Yeah, it's, uh... It usually happens with teenage boys a lot or teenagers. Somebody slides into your DM and-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, they send you pictures
- MZMariana van Zeller
... starts talking to you, convinces you to show photos.
- JRJoe Rogan
You send them pictures. Yeah.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah, and then they start basically extorting you for money. Really sad case of a kid, uh, the son of a, um, representative, a congressman from South Carolina. This guy's called Bre- Brandon Guffey. His son, um, Gavin, was playing video games with his friends, at the same time talking to this girl on Facebook, and he said to his friend, "Hey, I'm talking to this girl. I'm gonna hang out, up, and I'll talk to you later" or something. I don't know, an hour later or something, the dad's in the living room. It's, like, 11:00 PM, and he hears a lo- loud noise, runs to the bathroom. He shot himself.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh.
- MZMariana van Zeller
It's the saddest story because he was being sextorted.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MZMariana van Zeller
He's not the only one. There's dozens of American kids that this has happened to. He went to Facebook, right? They had an address that, from the... Uh, an email address from the person that was contacting, uh, Gavin. They, Facebook took down that profile of this fake girl. A few weeks later, they had just buried their son. They started being contacted by... Family members started being contacted by somebody who said they had those photos of Gavin, and they would release them unless they gave them money. And he went and looked at the profile. It was a different profile, but the email address was the same. So basically, Facebook had took- taken down that particular profile but had allowed the same email address to create other profiles. Isn't this crazy?
- JRJoe Rogan
That's fucking insane.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Can, it, uh, ga- it's, uh... He, he, the representative became very involved in creating laws. Uh, one of them is called, I think, Take It Down or something that just passed recently under the Trump administration. Uh, but it's... He's basically become sort of the voice of, of regulation for these platforms. And then there's another incredible one. I can't remember the name of the, the legislators behind it, but it's called the Safe s- Safe, Safe Platforms Act, uh, where they're actually trying to make it easy for people to report, to make sure that these platforms are taking these ads and, you know, fake profiles down, and, uh, and that is also putting the accountability on them. So if something happens, if you lose money, if your kid, you know, dies, um, that there is, that they... There's some accountability on these platforms because if they are making money from it, they should also be held responsible, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MZMariana van Zeller
I think so.
- JRJoe Rogan
Of course, 100%.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah, 100%, but the f- you ask the government-
- JRJoe Rogan
The fact that they're aware-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... that they have scammers, the... If they're not held accountable, you're gonna see exactly what they're doing.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
They find a way to actually profit off of it while also giving this illusion that they're doing something to protect the consumers.
- MZMariana van Zeller
It's crazy.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's crazy.
- MZMariana van Zeller
It's insane. I couldn't believe it when I read this.
- JRJoe Rogan
I can't believe they charge more.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
If they think you're a scammer, they just charge you more. It's a deterrent.
- 1:07:19 – 1:15:56
Mariana’s ‘Mary Zel’ sting: fake generals, appendicitis, and a victim turned mule
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah. I know. And these celebrity scam, and it's not just ads. It's, like, these celebrity impersonators too, which I showed in Super Scam Me. I created Mary Zel. I put myself on dating websites, and on, on Facebook, and Instagram, and TikTok, and all of those platforms, and I started commenting on some of these celebrity profiles, fake, knowing they were fake, but I just wanted to see what, what happened. And I went to the bathroom [laughs] and I came down, and as soon as I opened my phone, I had already dozens of these messages from... At one point, I actually continued con- talking to them, so at one point I was talking to three Keanu Reeves, two Brad Pitts, several- [laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
[laughs]
- MZMariana van Zeller
... several George Clooneys. Um, and I had a sort of a relationship with the one George Clooney, who was the more believable of the bunch, and who sent me a video that I showed in, in-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah
- MZMariana van Zeller
... Super Scam Me, where, yes, it's not perfect, but if you really want to believe it in his case, I mean, he was saying, "Good morning, Mary Zel. [laughs] How are you doing?"
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, also, if you are older and you have bad vision-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... and you're not very sophisticated-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Exactly
- JRJoe Rogan
... in the ways of the internet.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Exactly.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MZMariana van Zeller
You don't know what AI means. You don't know-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right
- MZMariana van Zeller
... like a robotic... Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MZMariana van Zeller
It was, it was plausible, and Leslie's videos from Jon Bon Jovi looked very real. I saw them. They did look real. And that was a year ago. I mean, now-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right
- MZMariana van Zeller
... you don't even need to You know, you can pretend you're anyone. You can-
- JRJoe Rogan
No, it's incredible now
- MZMariana van Zeller
... create anything on AI. It's crazy.
- JRJoe Rogan
It's incredible.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
I mean, they, they can make a com- I mean, there's a bunch of accounts that are completely fake people-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah
- JRJoe Rogan
... that have millions of followers.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah, yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
You know?
- MZMariana van Zeller
It, it's changed so much in the last year. So when I started this crazy experiment, I eventually started dating my four-star general in Syria-
- JRJoe Rogan
[laughs]
- 1:15:56 – 1:30:38
Loneliness as the root cause—and fears about AI/robots replacing relationships
- MZMariana van Zeller
I know. It's, it's sad. There's a lot of these sad stories. Um, and yeah, and I, I think a lot of it is the, the platforms allowing it, profiting from it, the banks as well, these dating websites as well. Um, but it, and our government not doing a lot, enough. But I do think we have to sort of really try to figure out how to address the loneliness epidemic, because a lot of these romance scams start because of that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh, God.
- MZMariana van Zeller
It's, it's sad. Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
But what, how do you address the loneliness scam, though? Like, that seems like you have to rewire society.
- MZMariana van Zeller
I think so, too, yeah. I, I mean, I don't know about you, but I'm, live with my husband, my father, and my son, and unfortunately, there's a lot of nights in which each of us in, is in their different rooms watching TV. I grew up in a house with one TV, and we all had to watch the same thing if we wanted to watch TV, right?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MZMariana van Zeller
You know, dinners were had at the table in family every night. I still do that, but there's a lot of families just can't and don't, don't have time for that.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Um, yeah, I just... Yeah, there's not a lot. My grand- I remember my grandmother, like, played cards with her friends several times a week, and that was a way that all these older ladies got together.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MZMariana van Zeller
I don't see that happening, and there's really no space for community. It's, it's sad, and I, I think partly it's us, on us to sort of reach out to our elderly and make sure they're okay, but I think partly it's also the government should be doing more to address this.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's not even just elderly. It's, it's young people.
- MZMariana van Zeller
I know. It's not just elderly. You're right.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, uh, Jamie was talking about this before, like, how many young men are virgins-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Mm-hmm
- JRJoe Rogan
... and have no relationships at all, and have no contact with women at all, and they're just watching porn and playing video games, and they're online all day, and they have no interaction with real people.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah, I know. It's, it's bad for young, for young men right now, it's tough.
- JRJoe Rogan
Well, it's also, it's, they don't know what the options are.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Mm.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, what are they gonna do? They're gonna go out? You know?
- MZMariana van Zeller
Yeah.
- JRJoe Rogan
Like, what are they gonna do? They don't know what to do.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Right.
- JRJoe Rogan
And the, and they've been sort of, you know, raised like veal, you know? They're just, like, locked in these boxes-
- MZMariana van Zeller
Mm-hmm
- JRJoe Rogan
... at their homes, and just being fed online information, and then they just, they, they, they're a... They're, they aren't suited for the real world, which-
- MZMariana van Zeller
No, they don't know how to interact with people.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MZMariana van Zeller
But you, yeah, it's-
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah, well, young kids today have a very difficult time looking people in the eye and having communication with them.
- 1:30:38 – 2:24:17
Pivot to cartels: ‘Fall of El Mayo,’ corruption, guns, fentanyl, and treatment options
- MZMariana van Zeller
Um, can I te- tell you, tell you about a, a really, something that I'm really excited about? [laughs]
- JRJoe Rogan
Sure.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Um, my husband's film, uh, it's a three-part series. You would love it. You should definitely watch it. It's coming out on Netflix on October 29. Really fun, 'cause it's about the cartel. [laughs] Fun, it's about the cartel. Um, it's called The Fall of El Mayo. Do you know who El Mayo is?
- JRJoe Rogan
Yes.
- MZMariana van Zeller
You're one of the few. Um, but El Mayo, particularly in America, is not that well known. He ran the Sinaloa cartel alongside El Chapo. Many people say he was actually more powerful, more important for the running of the cartel than El Ma- than El Chapo. But he was sort of the ghost figure, right? Nobody knew... I mean, there had been one f- one or two photos of him that existed. No tape- no- nobody knew what his actually voi- voice sounded like. He was like a ghost man, right? There it is. Ismael Zambada Garcia, El Mayo, known as El Mayo. Uh, and he's known as El Señor del Sombrero, the man with the hat. Yeah, that's the, that's the trailer for the f- uh, for the film.
- JRJoe Rogan
The man with the hat.
- MZMariana van Zeller
El Señor del Sombrero, the man with the hat, 'cause he, in this photo, he doesn't, he's not with it, but he usually always wore one of those, like, rancher hats, like a Stetson, but the summer Stetsons.
- JRJoe Rogan
Mm-hmm.
- MZMariana van Zeller
That's what he wore. Yeah, like, kind of like that. Yeah. It's, so it's about the story of the biggest, um... It's sort of like a Shakespearean tale. That's a guy called Eric Vallier. You should have him on the podcast. He's awesome. He's a f- former H- HSI investigator. He tracked down El Chapo.
- JRJoe Rogan
Wow.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Um, that's one of the only photos that exists of El Mayo. Uh, he was interviewed by this journalist that, from Proceso, uh, Julio Scherer, I think his name is. Yeah, Julio Scherer. It's written there, Julio Scherer Garcia. He was one of the only journalists ever to interview El Mayo, and then his daughter interviewed El Mayo many, uh, yeah, El Mayo m- many years later. El Mayo contacted her and said, "I interviewed your, uh, your dad interviewed me. I really liked him. He passed away. I'd like you to come back and interview me."
- JRJoe Rogan
Why did he want to be interviewed?
- MZMariana van Zeller
So the daughter- Because he wanted to show... He trusted this one journalist, and he wanted to show, he was sort of a ghost figure, but I think he wanted to show that he was a human being, that he had, you know, that people portrayed him as responsible for all the violence, and I think he wanted, you know, he wanted a little- Sort of, I don't know, a little understanding from people, I think. None of it would have worked either, n- none of the narco trafficking and the rise of the cartel, the Sinaloa cartel in particular, without corruption, right? So this is a man that was, they say, was the responsible one for, uh... What's the expression? Wheeling, y- oiling the hands. Oiling the hands. Wheels- I fuck up all American- Grease the wheels ... expressions. Greasing the wheels, oiling the [laughs] hands. Uh-huh. Greasing the palms. O- greasing the palms. Yeah. Oiling the hands of, uh, of a lot of politicians. Uh, so the, the governor of Sinaloa was basically working for the cartel. Uh, the mayor, the former mayor of Sinaloa was very in- like, ev- all big positions, important positions, but not just in Sinaloa, outside of Sinaloa. But the story about what happened is what led Darren to wanna do this doc, which is so good, which was this is the most man- Once, once El Chapo is, comes extradited to the U.S., El Mayo's the most wanted man. They, everybody is after him. All American authorities, the government want this guy. But he's the Ghost. Like, nobody knows it, where he lives. He has... Nobody has ever been able to catch him on a call like they did with El Chapo. It is impossible to find him, and suddenly one day he shows up in a small propeller plane in New Mexico, and is handed to the authorities. And this ha- it's crazy, and everyone who's been after him is like, "What the fuck? How is this possible? What's happening?" Who hands him to the authorities? So that is the, sort of the Shakespearean saga of it all. It was the son of El Chapo, Joaquín Guzmán, who tricked him. They had this partnership, the El Mayos and the Chapos, forever, since, um, I think it was since El Chapo left prison the first time. They had this partnership that they would build this cartel, and they would share the profits, and each of them had sort of this specialty that they would run. And, uh, Joaquín Guzmán, who happens to be also his godson, called him and said, "We're having a problem. The governor of Sinaloa is here. The former mayor, who's now the head of the university, is here. We have to deal with these politics and try to figure out how to solve this problem. Can you come to the ranch?" And El Mayo thought nothing of it. He's had a relationship with these kids all his life. He's friends with the dad, who's now in America. Gets on his car with his minimum security guards. He always traveled with a massive amount of security guards. In this case, he didn't travel with a lot 'cause he definitely did not think this was gonna be a, a plot, a ploy. Arrives in the ranch. Um, he's immediately... They kill the bodyguards. He's immediately handcuffed and blindfolded and put on a plane, and Joaquín Guzmán, El Chapo's son, himself personally basically hand-delivers him like a box of pizza to the American authorities. Whoa. Because he wanted cooper- he wanted to basically give something for lesser time for his brother, who had just been caught, Ovidio Guzmán, and for his dad, who's in prison, and he wanted to sort of give himself in and hope that it would help if he brought somebody important. And- What did they give him for that? They are still... This case is still ongoing. Uh, El Mayo is immediately arrested, obviously. There's... It's a small airstrip. The film, um, they do a recreation at it that they film at the actual airport and the actual airplane, and they, they have the exclusive foota- a lot of exclusive footage and interviews, including with El Mayo's lawyer. They take him out of the plane. Um, they, uh, he, El Mayo, eventually after a few days, everybody's dumbfounded, like, "Why is this happening? How did this happen?" And El Mayo eventually writes this, a story and that he puts out through his lawyer that explains what had happened, and he says he was essentially kidnapped by El Chapo's family, El Chapo's son. And a lot of people are thinking, "Okay, now he's gonna cooperate." If anyone knows anything about corruption in Mexico, it's this guy. He's the one oiling the hands, greasing the palms. Wow. So he knows about this stuff, and he decides to stay silent, and he's absolutely not. He's like, "It is my responsibility. I did this as well. There are many people involved as well." But n- unlike, um, El Chapo, who pled not guilty, he decided to plead, plead, plead guilty, and he's now facing life in prison. He is, uh, charged, sentenced to life in prison in the U.S. But his son, El Chapo's sons, and El Mayo's son, who had been apprehended many p- many years ago, um, have all gotten these cooperation agreements. So what a lot of people or sort of critics of this tactic are saying is that it seems what's happening is that these narco traffickers that were responsible for a lot of deaths in the United States because of drugs are now, um, through these cooperation agreements, fa- coming to the United States for these sort of, you know, paradise, uh, retirements, you know? 'Cause they're doing a lot less time in prison than they would have, and, uh, and we're allowing, and we're allowing this because it's the only way to get to, you know, other people. But these people are not being held responsible for what they did. Wow. It, it's a, it's a tactic that I, I think a lot of people have a problem with, um, as they should have. It's also interesting to me that it's a tactic that El Mayo himself decided not to take. He's like, "Fuck this. I'm not cooperating with anyone. I'll take full responsibility," because he's sort of a man that believes in his word and al- has always believed in- Like an old-school mob boss. Old school, yeah. He's like an old-school mob boss. Wow. Exactly. Yeah. It's insi- So is El Chapo's son incarcerated as well? El Chapo's- Did he turn himself in? Yeah, so all of them are. Ovidio and Joaquín, their cases are still open. I don't think any of them have, uh- But when he delivered El Mayo- He, he gave himself in ... he turned himself in as well. He turned himself in too, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. So who's running things over in- But this is, this is the big question mark, and the, the documentary raises that as well, is that the American government is saying that they had no say in this. It wasn't their idea, it wasn't their decision, and that they weren't actually involved in any of this, that they were alerted that there was a high-profile m- person coming on that plane, and so they were there at the airport ready, but that they weren't involve- involved in negotiating this with El Ma- El Chapo's son, Joaquín Guzmán. A lot of people don't believe that, and a lot of people think that there was obviously a lot of negotiating behind doors that happened in order to bring him in.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right. And what was the negotiation?
- MZMariana van Zeller
And, and, and the, the, you know, the government of Mexico wasn't happy with any of this. The negotiation was, "If you bring El Mayo in, we will reduce... You know, we'll put you in prison probably, but we will reduce your sentence. We will reduce the sentence of your brother, Ovidio Guzman, and we will do something to make your dad's life better in prison."
- JRJoe Rogan
So why wasn't the government of Mexico happy?
- MZMariana van Zeller
Because they believe that there was interference in their own country, that, uh, they basically kidnapped a Mexican member without their knowledge, and that-
- JRJoe Rogan
Even though he's a drug lord.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Even though he's a drug lord. Yeah, I mean, w- even with El Chapo, it was with obviously the cooperation and full support of the American government, but it was Mexican-
- JRJoe Rogan
Oh
- MZMariana van Zeller
... military that caught him, and then they, the government, extradited him to the United States because they realized they couldn't keep him in prison. [laughs] They tried twice and failed.
- JRJoe Rogan
Yeah.
- MZMariana van Zeller
And so the third time they were like, "Okay, he's gonna be extradited to the United States." But, but this time, uh, they didn't choose it, they didn't... They had nothing to do with it, and, and a Mexican citizen was kidnapped from their soil, so they were definitely... And they also weren't happy with the lack of communication from the government. They were asking for, "What's happening? Why is this person there?" And there was-
- JRJoe Rogan
Right, but the problem is the, the government is insanely corrupt.
- MZMariana van Zeller
It is, but I think Claudia Sheinbaum, who's the president of Mexico, would say that because previous governments were corrupt, that doesn't mean that, uh, that this is okay or that I am corrupt. I'm not defending them.
- JRJoe Rogan
Right.
- MZMariana van Zeller
I'm just saying that her position is there was obviously-
- JRJoe Rogan
I would understa- I get that.
- MZMariana van Zeller
Mm-hmm.
- JRJoe Rogan
If perhaps that is her position and that is who- how she really-
Episode duration: 2:24:17
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Transcript of episode 7SzYbqsUSog
