E24-Bodies, Borders, and Black Markets

In this harrowing episode of Lurking in the Fog, we are joined by Adam Zarnowski, a former CIA officer and specialist in human trafficking, organized crime, and digital forensics. Drawing from his experience in intelligence and investigations, Zarnowski walks us through the darkest corridors of modern slavery, where victims are trafficked not only across borders but within families, institutions, and nations. He explores how organized crime networks exploit religion, reputation, and even humanitarian crises to traffic organs, bodies, and labor, often with the complicity or blind eye of state actors. From boot camps for 'troubled teens' to the supply of blood and organs from the Global South to the Global North, Zarnowski unpacks the mechanics of control, complicity, and generational trauma that allow trafficking to persist in plain sight. He also discusses the 13th Amendment loophole, detention center labor, and the intersection of intelligence agencies with global mafias. Tune in for a difficult but necessary conversation about how crime thrives behind respectability, and what it takes to expose the fog.