{"podcast":{"title":"The Hidden Third","slug":"the-hidden-third-7538391","podcast_index_feed_id":7538391,"rss_url":"https://feeds.megaphone.fm/ROOSTER9417367138","website_url":"https://marianavanzeller.me/","image_url":"https://megaphone.imgix.net/podcasts/dcfbbf74-9fac-11f0-8877-4fa940d82a6e/image/f5b2b20cb475ccf4247036ec84dfa83d.jpg?ixlib=rails-4.3.1&max-w=3000&max-h=3000&fit=crop&auto=format,compress","author":"Mariana van Zeller","episode_count":40,"summary":"From Emmy and Peabody Award–winning journalist Mariana van Zeller comes THE HIDDEN THIRD, a weekly dive into the underground markets that quietly power a third of the global economy. Every episode Mariana sits down with people who know these worlds firsthand - the hustlers, smugglers, scammers, kingpins, and those trying to shut them down. The series reveals how they function, why they endure, and the profound ways they impact us all. New episodes drop every Wednesday wherever you get your podcasts. The Hidden Third is a co-production of Muck Media and The Roost Podcast Network.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-08T16:20:00.731987+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-hidden-third-7538391"},"episode":{"title":"The American Captive Inside Venezuela's Deadliest Prison","slug":"the-american-captive-inside-venezuela-s-deadliest-prison","published_at":"2026-04-22T07:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-hidden-third-7538391/the-american-captive-inside-venezuela-s-deadliest-prison","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-hidden-third-7538391","url":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/94/claritaspod.com/measure/verifi.podscribe.com/rss/p/pfx.vpixl.com/j0JIg/traffic.megaphone.fm/ROOSTER2426529394.mp3","audio_url":"https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/94/claritaspod.com/measure/verifi.podscribe.com/rss/p/pfx.vpixl.com/j0JIg/traffic.megaphone.fm/ROOSTER2426529394.mp3","summary":"Join The Hidden Third Patreon today! patreon.com/thehiddenthird Watch on Spotify. Spotify subscribers get fewer ads on my video. Get up to $200 off Square hardware when you sign up at http://square.com/go/hiddenthird! #squarepod James Luckey-Lange had one country left to visit in the continental Americas: Venezuela. He'd survived Haiti, Nicaragua, a husky he buried in Patagonia, and the loss of both his parents — including his mother, the late Q Lazzarus, the singer behind \"Goodbye Horses\" from The Silence of the Lambs. He crossed into Venezuela on the back of a motorcycle taxi from Brazil on December 7th. He was detained the next day. What followed was more than a month of beatings, starvation, a sham trial, and solitary confinement in Rodeo I — one of the most notorious prisons in the world — where he scraped the alphabet onto a wall to teach his cellmate to read, and carved the names of fellow prisoners into a bar of soap he smuggled out in his underwear. His release came only after the U.S. military captured Maduro — news he learned six days late, through prison whispers and an unexpected serving of chocolate cake. In this episode of The Hidden Third, Mariana van Zeller sits down with James to hear the full story — and find out what he's doing with that soap. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices","meta_description":"Join The Hidden Third Patreon today! patreon.com/thehiddenthird Watch on Spotify. Spotify subscribers get fewer ads on my video. Get up to $200 off Square…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":7424,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-hidden-third-7538391/episodes/the-american-captive-inside-venezuela-s-deadliest-prison/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-hidden-third-7538391/the-american-captive-inside-venezuela-s-deadliest-prison.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}