Mariana van Zeller
👤 PersonAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
Oh, 100% geographically.
It was that story that we did in the same episode you mentioned, the cocaine trafficking, which I'll never forget, which was the kid who was carrying in his backpack, right?
He was a 16-, 17-year-old kid carrying cocaine, 20 kilos of cocaine on his back for days on end in the jungles, seeing so many of his friends being killed in front of him by rebel gangs, rival gangs.
And when I asked him, why are you doing what you do?
He says, because I've always wanted to be a dentist.
I want to go to school and be a dentist, but my family is too poor and they can't afford my education.
And the only job that I have available for me now is doing this cocaine trafficking or carrying cocaine on my back.
And these are stories I hear all the time.
So the idea of being able to place ourselves in people's shoes and understand that, yes, even the people that we consider the bad guys could be me and you, as you know, has always been very important for me.
So the podcast allows me to do that.
So it's difficult to have exact numbers, but the estimate is that about 15 percent, 15 to 20 percent are black markets and the rest are gray markets.
So the totality is around 35 percent, an estimate.
OK, but I mean, so it's kind of half.
But, I mean, they also mix, right?
Because, you know, a lot of times what happens in one side affects the other.
You know, one of the really interesting...
The things that I think we've talked about a lot is I think this number shocks a lot of people.
But if you think of the drug trade alone, $600 billion, that's the estimate, anywhere between $300 and $600 billion every year just from the drug trade alone.