National Geographic’s Super Scam Me Investigates Online Fraud

Mariana van Zeller creates an online dating persona and becomes the target of a real romance scam investigation

**Johannesburg, 1 October 2026: **National Geographic has released the trailer and announced the premiere date for SUPER SCAM ME, an investigative documentary special featuring Emmy Award-winning journalist Mariana van Zeller. The one-hour production, produced by Muck Media and directed by Jeff Plunkett, is scheduled to air across Africa on Sunday, 18 October at 21:00 (CAT) on National Geographic (DStv 181, StarTimes 220). It will also be available to South African audiences on Disney+.

Romance scams are now one of the fastest-growing and most devastating forms of financial crime. The rise of generative AI, which is capable of convincingly imitating celebrities and public figures, is only making these scams more sophisticated and harder to spot. An estimated one in seven adults has lost money to this form of deception, and in 2025 alone, romance scammers stole more than $1 billion from American victims.

After years of reporting on the scam industry, Mariana enters one of her most immersive investigations to date in SUPER SCAM ME. In a real-life social experiment, she builds a new online dating persona and goes undercover as the target of a romance scam to understand and expose the tactics, technologies, and psychological manipulations these criminals utilize to deceive their victims.

What begins as an online investigation becomes an extraordinary real-world pursuit, as Mariana begins to focus on one scammer, posing as a four-star general, who is growing increasingly persistent and manipulative. She teams up with a white-hat cyber hacker to try to uncover her scammer’s true identity and location and sets out to confront him face-to-face.

Mariana also meets victims whose lives have been upended by romance scams, including a woman who was duped into believing she was in a relationship with Jon Bon Jovi. What she thought was a genuine connection left her facing foreclosure on her home, exposing the devastating real-world consequences of these crimes.

“I’ve spent years reporting on scams, and the reaction I hear most is ‘How could anyone be so stupid? That would never happen to me.’ But it can, and it does happen to anyone,” said van Zeller. “So this time, I made myself the target.”

In an innovative collaboration between National Geographic and Muck Media, Mariana’s podcast, “The Hidden Third,” will feature special episodes dedicated to SUPER SCAM ME, airing the week of 12 October. The episodes will include exclusive interviews with the white-hat cyber hacker and victim featured in the special.

As the host and executive producer of National Geographic’s Emmy-winning series “Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller,” Mariana has spent years investigating the world’s most dangerous underground economies, earning a record-setting 88 Emmy nominations and 16 wins.

Muck Media produces SUPER SCAM ME for National Geographic, with Jeff Plunkett and Mariana van Zeller credited as executive producers. Plunkett also directs the documentary, while Bengt Anderson serves as National Geographic’s executive producer.

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