The Hollywood Madam: Heidi Fleiss

Frank Meeink was once one of the most prominent neo-Nazis in the U.S. and inspiration for the character played by Edward Norton in the 1998 film American History X. At 17, he was hosting a neo-Nazi cable-access TV show and touring around the country preaching white nationalism. After Frank kidnapped a rival gang member, he was arrested and sentenced to three years behind bars—but it wasn’t until he got a job moving antique furniture for a Jewish boss that his perspective really shifted. Join Mariana deeper in the underground, and don’t miss the TV series Trafficked With Mariana van Zeller Wednesdays on National Geographic and streaming on Hulu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Al Peratt’s trafficking career started when he was in the military: legal clerk by day, hashish dealer at night. The gig turned to heroin, and after a lengthy prison sentence, to dealing meth in San Diego’s biker scene. He later fled the city—but not his old habits. In the Black Hills of rural South Dakota, he started one of the area’s biggest meth rings. Join Mariana deeper in the underground, and don’t miss the TV series Trafficked With Mariana van Zeller Wednesdays on National Geographic and streaming on Hulu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

By the 1980s, Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs had been deemed “organized crime on wheels” by federal agencies. This was the world that Frank D’alesio entered as a rookie ATF agent, when he began the string of undercover operations that would define his career. Investigating the most notorious motorcycle clubs, Frank’s undercover work pulled him deep into a world of brutal traditions, tested loyalties and illegal arms dealing—and ended with him at the head of his very own illegal motorcycle gang.

Just off the coast of San Diego, a group of high school surfers and their former Spanish teacher get involved in an unusual extracurricular activity: international weed smuggling. They called themselves the Coronado Company and Lee Strimpel was one of their leaders. For years, Lee’s team of “pot marines'' circumvented the U.S.-Mexico sea border. What started with a bunch of high school students swimming bundles of marijuana on their surfboards, grew to become a multimillion dollar smuggling empire. Their hauls got bigger and bigger, and so did their means of transport. But by the time they tried to expand their business across the Atlantic, the DEA caught wind. Lee’s plans all came down with a crash in a cinematic takedown on a freezing winter night in Maine. Join Mariana deeper into the underground, and don’t miss the TV series Trafficked With Mariana van Zeller Wednesday on National Geographic and streaming on Hulu.

Derek Alldred could have been an actor. He first invented characters to fuel an addiction, putting on costumes and playing trustworthy roles that put people at ease and got him what he wanted. But as his lies left a trail of destruction, he had to invent more aliases to cover his tracks—a web that spun out of control. But the curtain dropped when a girlfriend found his iPad—and his real name. Then military investigators got involved, bringing charges of stolen valor. Alldred received an astounding 24-year sentence in federal prison. He tells the story of his shifting identity. Join Mariana deeper into the underground, and don’t miss the TV series Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller Wednesday on National Geographic and streaming on Hulu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices