‘Super Scam Me’ First Look: Mariana van Zeller Goes Dating Undercover to Catch a Predator

Mariana van Zeller goes undercover to expose the $1 billion romance scam industry in a new upcoming documentary. As revealed exclusively first to TV Insider, Super Scam Me premieres October 17 on National Geographic (Disney+, and Hulu) and follows the Emmy Award-Winning journalist entering her most immersive investigation to date. 

In a real-life social experiment, she builds a new online dating persona, in effect becoming the prey to catch a predator. The fearless truth-seeker plays in as a target of a romance scam to understand and expose the tactics, technologies, and psychological manipulations these criminals utilize to deceive their victims. 

This special comes at a time where romance scams have grown as one of the fastest-growing and most devastating forms of financial crime. Only making these deceptive practices even more sophisticated and harder to spot has been the uptick of generative AI. The same tools that have been able to imitate celebrities and public figures.

Ahead of the premiere, National Geographic gave TV Insider a first look at how easy it is for people to pretend to be someone who they are not.  An estimated one in seven adults has lost money with romance scammers stealing upwards of more than $1 billion from American victims. The teaser gives a tease of the lengths van Zeller will go to disguise her appearance complete with wig, glasses, and different mannerisms. 

She explains there is a commonality in backstories with these scammers. They’re divorced, a military officer, or a businessman. Van Zeller gets one on the hook to the point she receives flowers after text exchanges. He sends her a link to how to use a bitcoin ATM. “Holding my hand while stealing my money,” van Zeller said, describing what was happening. 

The journalist 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. What begins as an online investigation becomes an extraordinary real-world pursuit.

In additional details shared, van Zeller also meets victims whose lives have been upended by romance scams. Among them is a woman who was duped into believing she was in a relationship with Jon Bon Jovi. This led to a 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 in the network’s initial announcement. “So this time, I made myself the target.” 

Accompanying the doc are special episodes of van Zeller’s The Hidden Third podcast the week of October 12. The collaboration between National Geographic and Muck Media will include exclusive interviews with the white-hat cyber hacker and victim featured in the doc. Along with hosting, van Zeller also served as executive producer of Trafficked with Mariana van Zeller. She has earned a record-setting 88 Emmy nominations and 16 wins for her investigations of the world’s most dangerous underground economies. 

Super Scam Me premiere, October 17, 9/8c, National Geographic (Streams Disney+ & Hulu)