Law & Order (1990) s25e09 Episode Script
Snowflakes
1
In the criminal justice system,
the people are represented
by two separate, yet
equally important groups:
the police, who investigate crime,
and the district attorneys,
who prosecute the offenders.
These are their stories.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[DISTANT SIRENS WAILING]
[PANTING AND GROANING]
It's okay.
I got you, I got you.
- [SPEAKING UKRAINIAN]
- I'm sorry?
- [SPEAKING UKRAINIAN]
- I'm sorry.
- I don't speak any type of
- [GROANS] Oh, help me!
Oh, that's the plan, love. Come on.
- What's your name?
- Nadiya.
Nadiya, Nadiya.
[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
[SIGHS]
[BREATHING RAPIDLY]
Said she walked in?
20 minutes ago. Won't say what happened.
She'll only give us
her first name, Nadiya.
She's Russian.
A Ukrainian.
She allowed a cursory eval.
We found vaginal trauma. It
looks like sexual assault.
We're hoping you can get her to talk.
- Okay.
- Nadiya, we're here again.
Attention all units,
be on the lookout for a white female,
20s, Nadiya Doe.
Gray sweats, tennis shoes.
Fled Mercy Hospital, believed on foot,
requires medical attention.
That's just a few blocks away, right?
[PHONE BUZZING]
[SIGHS]
It's spam.
Wife and I joined this new gym.
Ever since, we keep
getting peppered with ads
for longevity supplements
and testosterone boosters
for men of a certain age.
And you qualify?
Apparently.
Hey, I think that's the Nadiya Doe.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
Nadiya?
Nadiya, right?
Nadiya?
Okay. It's okay.
It's okay, it's okay. We're
gonna get you some help.
Central, 2-7, we made
contact with Nadiya Doe,
the BOLO from the ER. Hey, Nadiya.
Why don't you come take
a seat in our car, okay?
Come get warm.
[GROANS]
You're safe, okay? It's safe now.
All right? Nadiya?
Look, I promise.
[TENSE MUSIC]
[GUNSHOT]
[PEOPLE SCREAMING]
Shots fired! Shots fired! 10-52, 10-75!
I need a bus and all available
units to 28th and Lex.
- You got it?
- Yeah. Go, go, go!
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
[PEOPLE SCREAMING]
[HORNS BLARING]
Move, move, move, move, move!
- [HORNS HONKING]
- [TIRES SQUEALING]
Get out of the way!
Look out!
I got a black SUV westbound
on 31, Jersey plates.
Alfa, Romeo, George, 2-6-4.
♪
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
♪
Jess.
The hell happened?
God, you have so much blood. Here.
It's okay, it's okay.
Don't worry about it.
Um, one shot to the head from distance.
She saw the perp. She
knew the guy, no doubt.
Did you get a physical on the shooter?
No. He was in the passenger
seat, masked up, gloved up.
Same thing as the driver. We
have no identifiers at all.
Did you find anything on the body?
Yeah. Uh, this is some
kind of prayer card.
Found it in the pocket of her sweats.
Tymchenko.
I'm gonna get this to Fin.
He's got some free time on his hands.
I'm coordinating with Riley and Walker
trying to find this prick.
And I'll head to the
ER, see what they missed
before Nadiya made a run for it.
This was at 11:36 a.m.
That's the guy.
Okay, and it was after you told Nadiya
that her brother was here.
- Then she took off. Right.
- Okay.
You think there's some connection?
He seemed like a super nice guy.
Yeah, maybe not so much.
Uh, can you go back to
when he first walks in?
See if you can get us an image of him
before he puts his mask
on, whatever's clear.
There you are.
All right, did he, uh, did
he show an ID when he came in?
No.
Okay, so we don't have a name.
But you got a face?
Yeah. And that's not nothing.
Hey, I got a decent image of the perp.
I'm gonna send it on over.
Where are we on the vehicle?
[TENSE MUSIC]
All right, guys, listen up.
We got video of the SUV
entering this parking garage
seven minutes ago and there's
no indication our guy left.
This is the guy we're looking for
white male, 40s, average build.
Yeah, he killed someone
in broad daylight
and did not hesitate to shoot
at me, so let's be ready, okay?
Let's go.
♪
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
- Ma'am! Ma'am!
- What?
- Come on, come on, come on.
- Get downstairs.
All right, here we go.
♪
Smoke! Get back! Get back!
Get back!
[CAR ALARMS WAILING]
Hey. [KNOCKS ON DOOR]
A&E says the fire was
started with a flare,
intentionally, obviously, and
that any potential DNA evidence
in that vehicle is gone.
ESU is scouring cameras in the area.
No dice so far.
And these two had direct access
to Penn Station from the garage.
Yep, two minutes after parking.
They could be on the subway, Amtrak,
Jersey Transit, you name it.
What about the plates on the SUV?
Stolen.
Well, you two are full of good news.
You know, my phone's
ringing off the hook.
This woman was shot in broad daylight.
The brass wants answers,
and we're circling the drain.
Autopsy's in.
[BEEPING]
So Nadiya Doe was not the
victim of a sexual assault?
She was not.
The nurse at the ER said she was.
She got it wrong.
Nadiya was recently pregnant.
Like, within days.
What about her trauma? Her wounds?
They were caused by medical
forceps used crudely.
So what are you saying?
What was there a delivery?
And there's a baby out there somewhere?
It's possible.
I need to do more tests
to try to figure that out.
But yeah, it's possible.
- Hey.
- What's up?
Benson had me look into the prayer card
found on the victim, Nadiya Tecun.
That's Nadiya's real name, Nadiya Tecun.
- All right.
- Okay?
The name on the prayer
card is Tymchenko.
He's a priest.
He presides over Nadiya's
church back in Ukraine.
You get in touch with him?
Yeah, I just talked to him on the phone.
He said Nadiya flew out
here about two months ago.
He say why?
No, but he said she came by herself.
Okay, so we can run it
against passenger manifests,
figure out when and how
Nadiya got to the U.S.
Absolutely.
- Thanks, Fin.
- All right. Thank you.
- There's our girl.
- And clearly pregnant.
11:14 a.m., August 2nd.
Direct flight from Kyiv?
No such thing anymore.
Ukrainian airspace is closed.
She's waiting near baggage
claim 14, terminal 1, and
Who the hell is that?
A guy takes her suitcase
and they head for the exit.
Where does that exit take them?
Short-term parking's right there.
And what about the cameras
at the pay stations in the parking lot?
Yeah, we can pull those.
Let's do that.
She's dead.
Well, now, see, I'm surprised
that you're surprised.
Oh, no, you guys got
the wrong idea here.
No, see, we just call
balls and strikes here.
Now, our detectives have video footage.
Of you picking up Nadiya at JFK
and then leaving seven minutes later
out of short-term parking
with Nadiya, which means
you know what that means.
That means that
that you were the last person
to see her alive, and that,
that's a strike.
Yeah, okay, no, I'm a nobody.
No, no, today today,
you're definitely somebody.
Guys, what are we doing here?
I accept driving
assignments on Telegram.
They're encrypted. I pick up, I deliver.
A little bit of crypto
lands in my account.
I don't ask any questions. I don't
All right, so after you
picked up Nadiya at JFK,
where did you take her?
- Lady
- It's Captain.
Uh, Captain,
in my line of work,
answering questions like that
is bad for my health, you feel me?
No.
Not even a little.
The truth is, we don't really
care if you talk or not.
- Oh, is that right?
- Yeah, that's right.
The second you met Nadiya at JFK,
technically, your actions
crossed international borders
and you used a means
of foreign commerce.
So whatever crime you
committed during that process
- Which was nothing.
- Is federal.
So we can just hand
you over to the Feds.
Tell them everything we know.
You were her only point
of contact in the U.S.,
and now she's dead.
Oh, and just to be clear, this
is a death penalty offense,
so while you're sitting there
in your little cement cell,
you can think back on this moment
and wonder if not talking
was the right decision.
What what is she insane?
Good luck.
Hey, wait.
That mean you got something to say?
Something useful?
Yeah.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
♪
Driver told Benson
and Brady this is where
he dropped off Nadiya
after she got to the U.S.
At an abandoned power plant?
Yeah, we've been set up on it,
but there's no signs of life in there.
No way of knowing what's inside.
One way to find out.
♪
NYPD!
Police!
♪
Hey, careful.
Yeah, doesn't look like
anybody's been here for a while.
Why would he bring Nadiya here?
What about that door?
Give me that light.
Ready?
Smell that?
- Bleach.
- Yeah.
♪
Found the bleach smell.
[SNIFFS] Wow.
Found the bleach over here. It's empty.
[SNIFFS]
Those doors lock from the outside.
So whoever was sleeping
here was locked inside.
A bunch of baby pacifiers over here.
Most of them still in the packaging.
Still warm. They just left.
Guys!
This is like a maternity ward.
So they brought Nadiya to this place,
and then they kept her here?
With a bunch of other women.
Jesus.
Is that what we're looking at?
Some kind of baby mill?
So Jess, the ME found
trophoblastic degeneration
in Nadiya's uterus and
an inflamed endometrium.
All right, English, por favor?
Okay, so Nadiya didn't give birth.
She suffered a miscarriage.
But here's what's strange,
is that the fetal DNA that
was found in her uterine lining
is wholly unrelated to Nadiya's DNA.
So she was a surrogate
carrying someone else's baby.
Is that what this is?
Nadiya was flown to the U.S.
- to give birth to someone else's child?
- Not just Nadiya.
These women are being trafficked,
and they're forced to
carry someone else's baby.
Hey.
So we scrubbed the basement,
found traces of DNA,
but no hits on CODIS
or any other database.
We tracked the SKUs of
the baby supplies we found.
They were all bought
with Amazon gift cards
purchased in cash
then mailed to a postal box
rented under a fictitious name.
- Okay, great.
- Hang on.
I got good news.
They found the car that
brought Nadiya to the ER.
It's down on Houston and 2nd.
[SIREN WAILING]
Bruno.
Hey.
Couldn't figure out how Nadiya
got from the abandoned
power plant to the ER,
then I got a hit.
Caught this on a security
camera outside a bodega
three blocks from the ER.
There's Nadiya getting out of this car.
And you can see a woman
drove and dropped her off.
I can't make out any
features. She's wearing a hat.
With a sunflower on it.
You you run the plates?
Yeah, stolen from Staten Island.
Created an ALPR hot list,
the car got ticketed for
a parking meter violation,
so I got a ping.
But what's this woman doing here?
Hey, Brady, check this out.
No, I can't help.
Okay. Will you look again, please?
'Cause this is very important.
I'm telling you I've
never seen this woman.
Excuse me.
Are these people living here?
Just visiting.
Can we see your change of use permit?
I'm sorry?
Well, you're zoned for
assembly, not lodging.
And if you haven't changed your zoning,
then you're subject to up
to $1,000 a day in fines.
You're going to need
sprinklers, ADA access,
and the city will most
likely shut you down
until you get up to code.
These women are war refugees.
You can't just put
them out on the street.
I'm very sorry about that,
but my hands are tied.
I have to make the call.
Hey, are you okay?
I don't like begging people
to help me solve a freaking murder.
But yeah, sure, I'm fine. Why?
Uh, I don't know.
Because you just told the driver
that he's going on death row?
- Well, we're allowed to lie to them.
- Yes, I know that.
But then you just told the priest
that you're gonna put his war
refugees out on the street.
I'm just doing my job.
Look, I understand.
A woman just got her head
blown off 6 inches from you.
She pushed me out of the way, Liv.
What?
She what?
Nadiya knew she was going to die,
and the last thing she did
was put up her hand and make
sure it was her and not me.
I didn't
I didn't know that.
Okay, okay.
We're gonna get these guys.
I can't believe she's dead.
Polina, we need to understand
what happened to you, to Nadiya.
So please, let's just let's
just start at the beginning, okay?
Okay. [SIGHS]
Well, a man found me and
Nadiya back home in Ukraine.
And many others too.
And this man, he said I
would receive a, uh, baby.
Um
An embryo?
Yes.
He brought the embryo from the U.S.,
said that he would take
me to a doctor near Kyiv
who would implant it.
And then I would give birth in the U.S.
Did they ask you any
questions about yourself,
like any qualifications?
He wanted to make sure I
was not Jewish or Muslim.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
How much did they pay you?
- We paid them.
- Wait, what?
You paid them?
For what?
He said we would give
birth to anchor babies,
become U.S. citizens.
I bankrupted my family to get here.
And when we arrived,
when we were locked away,
then we knew it was all a lie.
What happens to the babies?
I don't know.
When one of us gives birth [SIGHS]
They are just gone.
What about Nadiya?
Something was wrong with her baby.
They brought her to the bed,
but they could not save the baby.
The pain was horrible.
[SIGHS] And it became clear
they were not going to help her.
So we escaped.
We stole the keys to
that car and we ran.
I brought her to the hospital.
Okay, who who was
involved in all this?
Who who was in charge of the place?
A man and a woman.
But they are very careful.
We never see their faces.
I don't know their names.
The only person I know is
the man who recruited me.
What is his name?
Misha. That's all I know.
Okay, well, can you describe him?
[SIGHS]
Average, quiet, about 35.
Polina, we can take you to a safe house
where nobody's going to
No, I'm safe here.
And I'm with my people.
Okay.
Okay, well, we will be
in touch with you, okay?
But in the meantime, I just
I'll leave that with you.
Okay. Thank you.
There are 20 pregnant
women out there somewhere.
You want to play follow the embryos?
- How do we do that?
- Well, look, if this Misha character
is flying embryos to Eastern Europe,
that means that they
have to be on ice, right?
Embryos that are stored
before they're implanted
into a surrogate are kept
in a tank of liquid nitrogen.
Right. They call them snowflakes.
- My sister did IVF.
- Okay.
So you can't just hop on a
plane with liquid nitrogen.
There has to be some
kind of approval process.
Right. I mean, there can only be
so many people that apply for that.
Right?
So we pull the applications
and see who's flying
snowflakes to Ukraine.
Lou, I think it worked.
All right.
Isn't Misha the nickname
for Mikhail in Russian?
Yeah, I think so.
Okay, take a look at this guy.
He filed 17 applications
to fly with liquid nitrogen
in the last two years.
39 years old.
Lines up with the age that
Polina Kravets gave us.
Yeah.
And it lists an apartment
in Long Island City
as his home address.
Okay, pull his picture,
bring it over to Polina.
If she says that's the
guy, that's the guy.
Mm-hmm.
[TENSE MUSIC]
He lives here.
All right, get back
downstairs where it's safe.
Kitchen clear.
Bathroom clear.
Misha Orlov!
Show me your hands
and get on the ground.
Get on the ground!
Show me your hands!
♪
Doesn't look like Misha's
gonna be much help.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
Okay, we're in.
- Great.
- Hey.
Hey.
No sign of forced entry, so
he probably invited them in.
Well, it looks like he
was offering them tea.
Okay, so what do we actually know?
We know Misha travels
regularly to Eastern Europe.
- He recruits women.
- Christian women.
Under false pretenses
to come to the U.S.,
where they basically become vessels
and are under lock and key
at some twisted baby farm.
We don't know whose embryos
are getting implanted.
We don't know what
happens to the babies.
We do know the people
who this Misha worked for
understand we're looking for them,
and they're trying
to cover their tracks,
first at the baby farm, and now here.
And we have no idea who they are.
We just found some WhatsApp
messages from somebody
demanding that Misha
make good on some sort of
financial arrangement.
And this person was very unhappy.
Looks like the last one
was from two days ago.
It says, give us our damn baby,
or we're coming at you
with everything we've got.
Misha never responded.
[KNOCK AT DOOR]
Hi.
Lieutenant Brady, Captain Benson, NYPD.
Oh, can I help you?
Yeah. Well, we hope so.
Um, is this is this your residence?
Uh, well, it's his place now.
- We just work here.
- Right, right.
And your name?
Carri. Carri Valenti.
Who is it, honey?
- Um
- What's this about?
Uh, messages were sent on
WhatsApp recently to a man
named Misha Orlov, we
think from this apartment
based on the IP address.
And?
- And he's been murdered.
- Wait, what?
Can we come inside?
Um, yeah. Yes.
I'm just putting the
baby down for a nap,
- so give me a sec.
- Thank you.
Misha Orlov was shot
today in his apartment
at 11:30 a.m., we think?
Can you tell us where you were?
Uh, Jason was at work.
The baby was at my mom's. I-I was here.
I had a bunch of Zooms.
You can't possibly think
we had anything to
Well, I have a text
I'd like to read you.
"Give us our damn baby,
or we're coming at you
with everything we've got"?
Oh. [SCOFFS] Okay, not my finest moment,
but we had nothing to do with this.
You're gonna need to come up
with a better explanation than that.
We've tried for years to have a baby,
but we couldn't conceive.
So we thought about adoption,
but in this city, it's 75 grand.
We went online.
We found a Christian charity
that made adoption affordable.
Misha was our point of contact.
And it was a dream.
You met in person?
No.
No, over the phone. You
know, texts and stuff.
And what about the birth mother?
- You meet her?
- No, it was a closed adoption.
Okay, I'm still not following
why you were so angry
and you said you were
gonna come after him
with everything you've got.
Our son, he's
he's changed everything, you know?
And so we wanted to have another.
And we sent Misha the payment,
and then he just ghosted us.
He vanished.
Well, uh, I'm sorry to
have to tell you this,
but we believe that
you acquired your son
unwittingly on the black market.
Wait, w-what?
If that's what you think,
we're we're not saying another word.
In fact, I think it's
time that you leave.
Well well, we're not leaving
until you give us some information.
We're not talking without a lawyer.
- Get the hell out of our house!
- Lawyer?
Why would you need a lawyer
unless you're involved somehow?
Jess. He said lawyer.
This is a highly unusual situation.
But we understand that
you need assurances
before you'll share
more information with us.
Do you?
This is my son.
This is this is our family.
We can't live with the idea
that someone might just
come and take him away.
I'm a father, Ms. Valenti. I get it.
So it took some prodding,
but we won those accommodations.
A judge has issued a protective order
that will keep your identities,
any statements you provide,
and all records relating to your son
sealed and restricted so
that only essential parties
can see them forever.
If we make an arrest
in the murders of Nadiya
Tecun and Misha Orlov,
and we need your testimony,
you will testify under a pseudonym,
and you'll be immune from
any criminal liability.
And we guarantee that no one
from the NYPD or this office
will ever alert CPS to even
the existence of your son.
Well, they're right.
This court order,
this is as much protection
as the law provides.
Mrs. Valenti, we we get it.
We want you to live your
life, to raise your son.
But but what that
means is, is that
that you need to do
the right thing as well.
So we need you
we need you to tell us
everything that you know.
[SIGHS] I
I can't, I can't.
[SIGHS] The idea that
my son is the product
of some criminal
underworld, it makes me sick.
I understand that.
I understand that, and that's
not something that we can undo.
But there are at least 20 pregnant women
out there in the world right
now who are in grave danger.
One of them is already dead,
so we need to find the rest of them.
[KNOCK AT DOOR]
The Valentis identify
the charity they used
to adopt their baby as this
outfit called Hope Lifts.
We ran it down, and it's
fraudulent, like we figured.
The principles registered
the charity under false names
- and addresses in Malta.
- Malta?
Apparently it's a hotbed
for stuff like this.
I mean, all kinds of fraud.
They still use fax machines too.
Oh, a literal paper trail?
- I've missed those.
- Mm-hmm.
So this bogus charity's
articles of incorporation
were filed by fax from
an office in Tribeca
belonging to a lawyer named Derek Hobbs.
Derek Hobbs?
- Ring a bell?
- Mm-hmm.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
That's who the Valentis said
delivered their son to their front door.
♪
[DOOR CLICKS OPEN]
Derek Hobbs?
NYPD.
Okay. What do you want?
We're on the way to my
daughter's basketball game.
That's you about a year ago,
at the home of Jason and Carri Valenti
handing them their adopted son?
So?
Well, we believe that child is a product
of some kind of underground baby farm
where women are
exploited and trafficked.
- Trafficked?
- Darcy, wait in the car.
No. What are they talking about?
- Nothing.
- Dad.
It's just my work. Wait in the car.
We need to know who your clients are
and who runs this operation.
As I'm sure you know, I
have no legal obligation
to answer that question
or reveal the identity
of any of my clients.
So if you'll excuse me.
Tell you what. I'll come with you.
What do you mean?
Well, I'll explain to your daughter
exactly who you are and what
Daddy really does for a living.
We've got two people dead, Derek.
So whoever you do your grunt
work for to make a buck,
they're killers.
They kept women as
slaves to make babies,
which they then sold for profit.
And you're trying to
hide behind the law?
I don't have anything to hide from you.
Great.
Then you don't have anything to
hide from your daughter either.
- Come on out, Darcy.
- No, no, you stop.
Come on, come on, come on, come on.
Don't you touch my daughter.
- Come on out.
- Darcy.
We're gonna talk about
what Daddy does for work.
- Dad, what is this?
- Stop!
Please!
It's up to you.
We could do this however you want.
♪
So according to your
lawyer buddy, Derek Hobbs,
this is the husband-and-wife team
that operated a fraudulent charity,
Sergey Volkov and Sara Tandon.
What do we know about them?
Okay, Volkov's a Russian national,
been in the U.S. for a decade.
Short sheet nothing
remarkable, nothing violent.
Sara Tandon, well,
couldn't find much on her.
No property holdings,
no criminal record,
no business licenses.
But this is from the ER.
Now, this is the guy who
claimed to be Nadiya's brother,
then put a bullet in her head.
- That's a clear match.
- This is our guy.
Now all we got to do is figure
out where the hell they are.
Whoa, guys, I got something.
I went back to the original sin.
Which was?
The theft of the plates
that were on the SUV Volkov was driving.
The one that almost
took your eyebrows off
- in the parking garage?
- That's the one.
Check this out.
I found some security footage
from the block where
the plates were stolen.
- So there's Volkov.
- Uh-huh.
Gets into that van.
Now, those plates,
they come back to him,
and two hours ago, they popped
on the Verrazano-Narrows.
I tracked the van with ARGUS
to a warehouse in Staten Island.
Hit it.
[TENSE MUSIC]
[DOOR RATTLES, SLAMS]
♪
Holy
It's a cryobank.
These are frozen embryos.
Snowflakes.
There's got to be hundreds of 'em.
All right, let's keep moving.
♪
[INDISTINCT DISTANT ARGUING]
[INDISTINCT ARGUING]
Sergey Volkov, Sara
Tandon! Get on the ground!
[GUNFIRE]
[SHOUTING IN UKRAINIAN]
♪
Go!
No, no, no! Do not move!
Get on the ground! Hey!
[TRIES SQUEALING]
- [YELLS]
- Stay down!
Stay down!
[TIRES SQUEALING]
[GROANS]
[MOTOR WHIRRING]
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
That's some sort of PCC.
Yeah, but no pistol.
No, the murder weapon's
probably long gone.
I found these by the embryo tanks.
Consent forms, medical disclosures,
and custody transfers.
They're all from the same clinic,
a place called Hudson Fertility Group.
So some of the embryos
gotta be from there.
All right, let's go.
Ms. Moore, how did this work?
Our clients who undergo IVF,
they typically generate extra embryos.
They can donate them to science,
they can elect to have them
disposed of as medical waste.
That can be tough.
For religious people, especially.
Right.
So you match the donors
with the recipients?
Oh, no. There are charities for that.
They receive the embryos here,
match them with devout
couples with the promise
that these children
eventually will be raised
in faithful homes.
Right, so Hope Lifts was
one of these charities.
Yes.
Who did you speak to from Hope Lifts?
The lady who ran it.
Her credentials were impeccable.
Diana Hill?
Is that Diana Hill?
Yes.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
Thank you.
♪
Ms. Tandon,
these charities perform
a real public service.
For faithful people
struggling with what to do
with extra embryos, people
who want to be loving parents.
And you knew that.
And you exploited it.
I can almost admire the business model.
I mean, you tell these women
they're gonna become U.S. citizens
so they pay for their own trafficking.
And your raw materials,
the embryos you get donated
from the fertility clinic,
it's just pure profit.
♪
But what's the endgame?
What's the plan here?
I mean, what are you
what are you gonna do with 400 embryos?
Lawyer.
Sara Tandon denies everything.
Other than that, she's
not saying a word.
Well, we have a solid case against her
on fraud related to the fake charity,
but the trafficking piece is
not a slam dunk by any stretch.
No, and there's no hard evidence
tying her to the murders
of Nadiya and Misha.
We can't even put Sara Tandon
at the baby farm at all.
How many years are we looking at
on the charges we feel good about?
Well, seven years, maybe.
What happened here is unspeakable.
As far as we know,
Sara Tandon is the architect
of this entire thing.
She stole these women's lives,
she stole their bodies for profit.
And you're saying she could
be out in, uh, three years?
Unless something changes, yes.
So we've got to chase
whatever leads we can.
We'll push forward here
on the charges we have
and put the rest together on the fly.
Do whatever we have to do to hold
Sara Tandon accountable
for this whole damn thing.
I got it.
The warrant landed, getting us
into Volkov and Sara Tandon's
encrypted Discord messages.
Let's hope there's
something useful in there,
not just Sara telling Volkov
to go take out the trash.
There's got to be something, right?
I mean, this can't just happen.
What, that a woman is murdered
within 6 inches of
you in broad daylight,
and you can't make the case?
- Yeah, that.
- Wait.
Hang on.
All right, check out
this flurry of messages
from November 30th between
Volkov, Sara Tandon,
and somebody.
"We'll take them all."
As in all of the embryos?
Who would want to buy 400 embryos?
Maybe they mean all the
babies that were set to be born
in the next few months.
Well, I don't mean to beat a dead horse,
but who would want 20
babies at the same time?
Look at that.
Sara Tandon says, "I can make
a delivery on December 2nd."
Well, that's yesterday.
So whoever's communicating
with them here,
let's try to tie these messages
to an IP address, to a location.
Got it.
[TENSE MUSIC]
♪
[ENGINE REVVING]
♪
Do it.
Clear!
- Clear!
- Clear!
Clear!
I don't think anybody's home.
Hey.
Main house is clear.
Well, check this out.
Oh, my God.
That's a Fowgeis.
Ancient Germanic thing the Vandals.
Been appropriated by
some very bad people.
If you hang this,
it means you're willing
to die for the cause.
- What's the cause?
- Hate.
We got one more structure to clear.
All right, let's go.
♪
Found a freaking bomb factory.
[WHISTLES] This is a lot of hardware.
So Volkov and Tandon
were talking to a bunch
of white supremacists.
White supremacists with an arsenal.
But what does a hate group
have to do with a baby mill?
Whatever the reason, we need
to get the bomb squad in here.
I'll give them a heads up.
- [BEEPING]
- Shh, hold on. You hear that?
- [BEEPING]
- Everyone out! Move, now!
- Move! Move! Move!
- Everyone out, now!
- Let's go, let's go!
- Now!
- Move, move!
- Everybody out, now!
♪
[PANTING]
[GROANING]
♪
Oh, my God.
Bruno. Oh, God.
- Ow.
- Oh, God.
I need a bus, now!
You're okay. [PANTING]
♪
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
♪
[WOLF HOWLS]
In the criminal justice system,
the people are represented
by two separate, yet
equally important groups:
the police, who investigate crime,
and the district attorneys,
who prosecute the offenders.
These are their stories.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
[DISTANT SIRENS WAILING]
[PANTING AND GROANING]
It's okay.
I got you, I got you.
- [SPEAKING UKRAINIAN]
- I'm sorry?
- [SPEAKING UKRAINIAN]
- I'm sorry.
- I don't speak any type of
- [GROANS] Oh, help me!
Oh, that's the plan, love. Come on.
- What's your name?
- Nadiya.
Nadiya, Nadiya.
[SPEAKING RUSSIAN]
[SIGHS]
[BREATHING RAPIDLY]
Said she walked in?
20 minutes ago. Won't say what happened.
She'll only give us
her first name, Nadiya.
She's Russian.
A Ukrainian.
She allowed a cursory eval.
We found vaginal trauma. It
looks like sexual assault.
We're hoping you can get her to talk.
- Okay.
- Nadiya, we're here again.
Attention all units,
be on the lookout for a white female,
20s, Nadiya Doe.
Gray sweats, tennis shoes.
Fled Mercy Hospital, believed on foot,
requires medical attention.
That's just a few blocks away, right?
[PHONE BUZZING]
[SIGHS]
It's spam.
Wife and I joined this new gym.
Ever since, we keep
getting peppered with ads
for longevity supplements
and testosterone boosters
for men of a certain age.
And you qualify?
Apparently.
Hey, I think that's the Nadiya Doe.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
Nadiya?
Nadiya, right?
Nadiya?
Okay. It's okay.
It's okay, it's okay. We're
gonna get you some help.
Central, 2-7, we made
contact with Nadiya Doe,
the BOLO from the ER. Hey, Nadiya.
Why don't you come take
a seat in our car, okay?
Come get warm.
[GROANS]
You're safe, okay? It's safe now.
All right? Nadiya?
Look, I promise.
[TENSE MUSIC]
[GUNSHOT]
[PEOPLE SCREAMING]
Shots fired! Shots fired! 10-52, 10-75!
I need a bus and all available
units to 28th and Lex.
- You got it?
- Yeah. Go, go, go!
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
[PEOPLE SCREAMING]
[HORNS BLARING]
Move, move, move, move, move!
- [HORNS HONKING]
- [TIRES SQUEALING]
Get out of the way!
Look out!
I got a black SUV westbound
on 31, Jersey plates.
Alfa, Romeo, George, 2-6-4.
♪
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
♪
Jess.
The hell happened?
God, you have so much blood. Here.
It's okay, it's okay.
Don't worry about it.
Um, one shot to the head from distance.
She saw the perp. She
knew the guy, no doubt.
Did you get a physical on the shooter?
No. He was in the passenger
seat, masked up, gloved up.
Same thing as the driver. We
have no identifiers at all.
Did you find anything on the body?
Yeah. Uh, this is some
kind of prayer card.
Found it in the pocket of her sweats.
Tymchenko.
I'm gonna get this to Fin.
He's got some free time on his hands.
I'm coordinating with Riley and Walker
trying to find this prick.
And I'll head to the
ER, see what they missed
before Nadiya made a run for it.
This was at 11:36 a.m.
That's the guy.
Okay, and it was after you told Nadiya
that her brother was here.
- Then she took off. Right.
- Okay.
You think there's some connection?
He seemed like a super nice guy.
Yeah, maybe not so much.
Uh, can you go back to
when he first walks in?
See if you can get us an image of him
before he puts his mask
on, whatever's clear.
There you are.
All right, did he, uh, did
he show an ID when he came in?
No.
Okay, so we don't have a name.
But you got a face?
Yeah. And that's not nothing.
Hey, I got a decent image of the perp.
I'm gonna send it on over.
Where are we on the vehicle?
[TENSE MUSIC]
All right, guys, listen up.
We got video of the SUV
entering this parking garage
seven minutes ago and there's
no indication our guy left.
This is the guy we're looking for
white male, 40s, average build.
Yeah, he killed someone
in broad daylight
and did not hesitate to shoot
at me, so let's be ready, okay?
Let's go.
♪
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
- Ma'am! Ma'am!
- What?
- Come on, come on, come on.
- Get downstairs.
All right, here we go.
♪
Smoke! Get back! Get back!
Get back!
[CAR ALARMS WAILING]
Hey. [KNOCKS ON DOOR]
A&E says the fire was
started with a flare,
intentionally, obviously, and
that any potential DNA evidence
in that vehicle is gone.
ESU is scouring cameras in the area.
No dice so far.
And these two had direct access
to Penn Station from the garage.
Yep, two minutes after parking.
They could be on the subway, Amtrak,
Jersey Transit, you name it.
What about the plates on the SUV?
Stolen.
Well, you two are full of good news.
You know, my phone's
ringing off the hook.
This woman was shot in broad daylight.
The brass wants answers,
and we're circling the drain.
Autopsy's in.
[BEEPING]
So Nadiya Doe was not the
victim of a sexual assault?
She was not.
The nurse at the ER said she was.
She got it wrong.
Nadiya was recently pregnant.
Like, within days.
What about her trauma? Her wounds?
They were caused by medical
forceps used crudely.
So what are you saying?
What was there a delivery?
And there's a baby out there somewhere?
It's possible.
I need to do more tests
to try to figure that out.
But yeah, it's possible.
- Hey.
- What's up?
Benson had me look into the prayer card
found on the victim, Nadiya Tecun.
That's Nadiya's real name, Nadiya Tecun.
- All right.
- Okay?
The name on the prayer
card is Tymchenko.
He's a priest.
He presides over Nadiya's
church back in Ukraine.
You get in touch with him?
Yeah, I just talked to him on the phone.
He said Nadiya flew out
here about two months ago.
He say why?
No, but he said she came by herself.
Okay, so we can run it
against passenger manifests,
figure out when and how
Nadiya got to the U.S.
Absolutely.
- Thanks, Fin.
- All right. Thank you.
- There's our girl.
- And clearly pregnant.
11:14 a.m., August 2nd.
Direct flight from Kyiv?
No such thing anymore.
Ukrainian airspace is closed.
She's waiting near baggage
claim 14, terminal 1, and
Who the hell is that?
A guy takes her suitcase
and they head for the exit.
Where does that exit take them?
Short-term parking's right there.
And what about the cameras
at the pay stations in the parking lot?
Yeah, we can pull those.
Let's do that.
She's dead.
Well, now, see, I'm surprised
that you're surprised.
Oh, no, you guys got
the wrong idea here.
No, see, we just call
balls and strikes here.
Now, our detectives have video footage.
Of you picking up Nadiya at JFK
and then leaving seven minutes later
out of short-term parking
with Nadiya, which means
you know what that means.
That means that
that you were the last person
to see her alive, and that,
that's a strike.
Yeah, okay, no, I'm a nobody.
No, no, today today,
you're definitely somebody.
Guys, what are we doing here?
I accept driving
assignments on Telegram.
They're encrypted. I pick up, I deliver.
A little bit of crypto
lands in my account.
I don't ask any questions. I don't
All right, so after you
picked up Nadiya at JFK,
where did you take her?
- Lady
- It's Captain.
Uh, Captain,
in my line of work,
answering questions like that
is bad for my health, you feel me?
No.
Not even a little.
The truth is, we don't really
care if you talk or not.
- Oh, is that right?
- Yeah, that's right.
The second you met Nadiya at JFK,
technically, your actions
crossed international borders
and you used a means
of foreign commerce.
So whatever crime you
committed during that process
- Which was nothing.
- Is federal.
So we can just hand
you over to the Feds.
Tell them everything we know.
You were her only point
of contact in the U.S.,
and now she's dead.
Oh, and just to be clear, this
is a death penalty offense,
so while you're sitting there
in your little cement cell,
you can think back on this moment
and wonder if not talking
was the right decision.
What what is she insane?
Good luck.
Hey, wait.
That mean you got something to say?
Something useful?
Yeah.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
♪
Driver told Benson
and Brady this is where
he dropped off Nadiya
after she got to the U.S.
At an abandoned power plant?
Yeah, we've been set up on it,
but there's no signs of life in there.
No way of knowing what's inside.
One way to find out.
♪
NYPD!
Police!
♪
Hey, careful.
Yeah, doesn't look like
anybody's been here for a while.
Why would he bring Nadiya here?
What about that door?
Give me that light.
Ready?
Smell that?
- Bleach.
- Yeah.
♪
Found the bleach smell.
[SNIFFS] Wow.
Found the bleach over here. It's empty.
[SNIFFS]
Those doors lock from the outside.
So whoever was sleeping
here was locked inside.
A bunch of baby pacifiers over here.
Most of them still in the packaging.
Still warm. They just left.
Guys!
This is like a maternity ward.
So they brought Nadiya to this place,
and then they kept her here?
With a bunch of other women.
Jesus.
Is that what we're looking at?
Some kind of baby mill?
So Jess, the ME found
trophoblastic degeneration
in Nadiya's uterus and
an inflamed endometrium.
All right, English, por favor?
Okay, so Nadiya didn't give birth.
She suffered a miscarriage.
But here's what's strange,
is that the fetal DNA that
was found in her uterine lining
is wholly unrelated to Nadiya's DNA.
So she was a surrogate
carrying someone else's baby.
Is that what this is?
Nadiya was flown to the U.S.
- to give birth to someone else's child?
- Not just Nadiya.
These women are being trafficked,
and they're forced to
carry someone else's baby.
Hey.
So we scrubbed the basement,
found traces of DNA,
but no hits on CODIS
or any other database.
We tracked the SKUs of
the baby supplies we found.
They were all bought
with Amazon gift cards
purchased in cash
then mailed to a postal box
rented under a fictitious name.
- Okay, great.
- Hang on.
I got good news.
They found the car that
brought Nadiya to the ER.
It's down on Houston and 2nd.
[SIREN WAILING]
Bruno.
Hey.
Couldn't figure out how Nadiya
got from the abandoned
power plant to the ER,
then I got a hit.
Caught this on a security
camera outside a bodega
three blocks from the ER.
There's Nadiya getting out of this car.
And you can see a woman
drove and dropped her off.
I can't make out any
features. She's wearing a hat.
With a sunflower on it.
You you run the plates?
Yeah, stolen from Staten Island.
Created an ALPR hot list,
the car got ticketed for
a parking meter violation,
so I got a ping.
But what's this woman doing here?
Hey, Brady, check this out.
No, I can't help.
Okay. Will you look again, please?
'Cause this is very important.
I'm telling you I've
never seen this woman.
Excuse me.
Are these people living here?
Just visiting.
Can we see your change of use permit?
I'm sorry?
Well, you're zoned for
assembly, not lodging.
And if you haven't changed your zoning,
then you're subject to up
to $1,000 a day in fines.
You're going to need
sprinklers, ADA access,
and the city will most
likely shut you down
until you get up to code.
These women are war refugees.
You can't just put
them out on the street.
I'm very sorry about that,
but my hands are tied.
I have to make the call.
Hey, are you okay?
I don't like begging people
to help me solve a freaking murder.
But yeah, sure, I'm fine. Why?
Uh, I don't know.
Because you just told the driver
that he's going on death row?
- Well, we're allowed to lie to them.
- Yes, I know that.
But then you just told the priest
that you're gonna put his war
refugees out on the street.
I'm just doing my job.
Look, I understand.
A woman just got her head
blown off 6 inches from you.
She pushed me out of the way, Liv.
What?
She what?
Nadiya knew she was going to die,
and the last thing she did
was put up her hand and make
sure it was her and not me.
I didn't
I didn't know that.
Okay, okay.
We're gonna get these guys.
I can't believe she's dead.
Polina, we need to understand
what happened to you, to Nadiya.
So please, let's just let's
just start at the beginning, okay?
Okay. [SIGHS]
Well, a man found me and
Nadiya back home in Ukraine.
And many others too.
And this man, he said I
would receive a, uh, baby.
Um
An embryo?
Yes.
He brought the embryo from the U.S.,
said that he would take
me to a doctor near Kyiv
who would implant it.
And then I would give birth in the U.S.
Did they ask you any
questions about yourself,
like any qualifications?
He wanted to make sure I
was not Jewish or Muslim.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
How much did they pay you?
- We paid them.
- Wait, what?
You paid them?
For what?
He said we would give
birth to anchor babies,
become U.S. citizens.
I bankrupted my family to get here.
And when we arrived,
when we were locked away,
then we knew it was all a lie.
What happens to the babies?
I don't know.
When one of us gives birth [SIGHS]
They are just gone.
What about Nadiya?
Something was wrong with her baby.
They brought her to the bed,
but they could not save the baby.
The pain was horrible.
[SIGHS] And it became clear
they were not going to help her.
So we escaped.
We stole the keys to
that car and we ran.
I brought her to the hospital.
Okay, who who was
involved in all this?
Who who was in charge of the place?
A man and a woman.
But they are very careful.
We never see their faces.
I don't know their names.
The only person I know is
the man who recruited me.
What is his name?
Misha. That's all I know.
Okay, well, can you describe him?
[SIGHS]
Average, quiet, about 35.
Polina, we can take you to a safe house
where nobody's going to
No, I'm safe here.
And I'm with my people.
Okay.
Okay, well, we will be
in touch with you, okay?
But in the meantime, I just
I'll leave that with you.
Okay. Thank you.
There are 20 pregnant
women out there somewhere.
You want to play follow the embryos?
- How do we do that?
- Well, look, if this Misha character
is flying embryos to Eastern Europe,
that means that they
have to be on ice, right?
Embryos that are stored
before they're implanted
into a surrogate are kept
in a tank of liquid nitrogen.
Right. They call them snowflakes.
- My sister did IVF.
- Okay.
So you can't just hop on a
plane with liquid nitrogen.
There has to be some
kind of approval process.
Right. I mean, there can only be
so many people that apply for that.
Right?
So we pull the applications
and see who's flying
snowflakes to Ukraine.
Lou, I think it worked.
All right.
Isn't Misha the nickname
for Mikhail in Russian?
Yeah, I think so.
Okay, take a look at this guy.
He filed 17 applications
to fly with liquid nitrogen
in the last two years.
39 years old.
Lines up with the age that
Polina Kravets gave us.
Yeah.
And it lists an apartment
in Long Island City
as his home address.
Okay, pull his picture,
bring it over to Polina.
If she says that's the
guy, that's the guy.
Mm-hmm.
[TENSE MUSIC]
He lives here.
All right, get back
downstairs where it's safe.
Kitchen clear.
Bathroom clear.
Misha Orlov!
Show me your hands
and get on the ground.
Get on the ground!
Show me your hands!
♪
Doesn't look like Misha's
gonna be much help.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
Okay, we're in.
- Great.
- Hey.
Hey.
No sign of forced entry, so
he probably invited them in.
Well, it looks like he
was offering them tea.
Okay, so what do we actually know?
We know Misha travels
regularly to Eastern Europe.
- He recruits women.
- Christian women.
Under false pretenses
to come to the U.S.,
where they basically become vessels
and are under lock and key
at some twisted baby farm.
We don't know whose embryos
are getting implanted.
We don't know what
happens to the babies.
We do know the people
who this Misha worked for
understand we're looking for them,
and they're trying
to cover their tracks,
first at the baby farm, and now here.
And we have no idea who they are.
We just found some WhatsApp
messages from somebody
demanding that Misha
make good on some sort of
financial arrangement.
And this person was very unhappy.
Looks like the last one
was from two days ago.
It says, give us our damn baby,
or we're coming at you
with everything we've got.
Misha never responded.
[KNOCK AT DOOR]
Hi.
Lieutenant Brady, Captain Benson, NYPD.
Oh, can I help you?
Yeah. Well, we hope so.
Um, is this is this your residence?
Uh, well, it's his place now.
- We just work here.
- Right, right.
And your name?
Carri. Carri Valenti.
Who is it, honey?
- Um
- What's this about?
Uh, messages were sent on
WhatsApp recently to a man
named Misha Orlov, we
think from this apartment
based on the IP address.
And?
- And he's been murdered.
- Wait, what?
Can we come inside?
Um, yeah. Yes.
I'm just putting the
baby down for a nap,
- so give me a sec.
- Thank you.
Misha Orlov was shot
today in his apartment
at 11:30 a.m., we think?
Can you tell us where you were?
Uh, Jason was at work.
The baby was at my mom's. I-I was here.
I had a bunch of Zooms.
You can't possibly think
we had anything to
Well, I have a text
I'd like to read you.
"Give us our damn baby,
or we're coming at you
with everything we've got"?
Oh. [SCOFFS] Okay, not my finest moment,
but we had nothing to do with this.
You're gonna need to come up
with a better explanation than that.
We've tried for years to have a baby,
but we couldn't conceive.
So we thought about adoption,
but in this city, it's 75 grand.
We went online.
We found a Christian charity
that made adoption affordable.
Misha was our point of contact.
And it was a dream.
You met in person?
No.
No, over the phone. You
know, texts and stuff.
And what about the birth mother?
- You meet her?
- No, it was a closed adoption.
Okay, I'm still not following
why you were so angry
and you said you were
gonna come after him
with everything you've got.
Our son, he's
he's changed everything, you know?
And so we wanted to have another.
And we sent Misha the payment,
and then he just ghosted us.
He vanished.
Well, uh, I'm sorry to
have to tell you this,
but we believe that
you acquired your son
unwittingly on the black market.
Wait, w-what?
If that's what you think,
we're we're not saying another word.
In fact, I think it's
time that you leave.
Well well, we're not leaving
until you give us some information.
We're not talking without a lawyer.
- Get the hell out of our house!
- Lawyer?
Why would you need a lawyer
unless you're involved somehow?
Jess. He said lawyer.
This is a highly unusual situation.
But we understand that
you need assurances
before you'll share
more information with us.
Do you?
This is my son.
This is this is our family.
We can't live with the idea
that someone might just
come and take him away.
I'm a father, Ms. Valenti. I get it.
So it took some prodding,
but we won those accommodations.
A judge has issued a protective order
that will keep your identities,
any statements you provide,
and all records relating to your son
sealed and restricted so
that only essential parties
can see them forever.
If we make an arrest
in the murders of Nadiya
Tecun and Misha Orlov,
and we need your testimony,
you will testify under a pseudonym,
and you'll be immune from
any criminal liability.
And we guarantee that no one
from the NYPD or this office
will ever alert CPS to even
the existence of your son.
Well, they're right.
This court order,
this is as much protection
as the law provides.
Mrs. Valenti, we we get it.
We want you to live your
life, to raise your son.
But but what that
means is, is that
that you need to do
the right thing as well.
So we need you
we need you to tell us
everything that you know.
[SIGHS] I
I can't, I can't.
[SIGHS] The idea that
my son is the product
of some criminal
underworld, it makes me sick.
I understand that.
I understand that, and that's
not something that we can undo.
But there are at least 20 pregnant women
out there in the world right
now who are in grave danger.
One of them is already dead,
so we need to find the rest of them.
[KNOCK AT DOOR]
The Valentis identify
the charity they used
to adopt their baby as this
outfit called Hope Lifts.
We ran it down, and it's
fraudulent, like we figured.
The principles registered
the charity under false names
- and addresses in Malta.
- Malta?
Apparently it's a hotbed
for stuff like this.
I mean, all kinds of fraud.
They still use fax machines too.
Oh, a literal paper trail?
- I've missed those.
- Mm-hmm.
So this bogus charity's
articles of incorporation
were filed by fax from
an office in Tribeca
belonging to a lawyer named Derek Hobbs.
Derek Hobbs?
- Ring a bell?
- Mm-hmm.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
That's who the Valentis said
delivered their son to their front door.
♪
[DOOR CLICKS OPEN]
Derek Hobbs?
NYPD.
Okay. What do you want?
We're on the way to my
daughter's basketball game.
That's you about a year ago,
at the home of Jason and Carri Valenti
handing them their adopted son?
So?
Well, we believe that child is a product
of some kind of underground baby farm
where women are
exploited and trafficked.
- Trafficked?
- Darcy, wait in the car.
No. What are they talking about?
- Nothing.
- Dad.
It's just my work. Wait in the car.
We need to know who your clients are
and who runs this operation.
As I'm sure you know, I
have no legal obligation
to answer that question
or reveal the identity
of any of my clients.
So if you'll excuse me.
Tell you what. I'll come with you.
What do you mean?
Well, I'll explain to your daughter
exactly who you are and what
Daddy really does for a living.
We've got two people dead, Derek.
So whoever you do your grunt
work for to make a buck,
they're killers.
They kept women as
slaves to make babies,
which they then sold for profit.
And you're trying to
hide behind the law?
I don't have anything to hide from you.
Great.
Then you don't have anything to
hide from your daughter either.
- Come on out, Darcy.
- No, no, you stop.
Come on, come on, come on, come on.
Don't you touch my daughter.
- Come on out.
- Darcy.
We're gonna talk about
what Daddy does for work.
- Dad, what is this?
- Stop!
Please!
It's up to you.
We could do this however you want.
♪
So according to your
lawyer buddy, Derek Hobbs,
this is the husband-and-wife team
that operated a fraudulent charity,
Sergey Volkov and Sara Tandon.
What do we know about them?
Okay, Volkov's a Russian national,
been in the U.S. for a decade.
Short sheet nothing
remarkable, nothing violent.
Sara Tandon, well,
couldn't find much on her.
No property holdings,
no criminal record,
no business licenses.
But this is from the ER.
Now, this is the guy who
claimed to be Nadiya's brother,
then put a bullet in her head.
- That's a clear match.
- This is our guy.
Now all we got to do is figure
out where the hell they are.
Whoa, guys, I got something.
I went back to the original sin.
Which was?
The theft of the plates
that were on the SUV Volkov was driving.
The one that almost
took your eyebrows off
- in the parking garage?
- That's the one.
Check this out.
I found some security footage
from the block where
the plates were stolen.
- So there's Volkov.
- Uh-huh.
Gets into that van.
Now, those plates,
they come back to him,
and two hours ago, they popped
on the Verrazano-Narrows.
I tracked the van with ARGUS
to a warehouse in Staten Island.
Hit it.
[TENSE MUSIC]
[DOOR RATTLES, SLAMS]
♪
Holy
It's a cryobank.
These are frozen embryos.
Snowflakes.
There's got to be hundreds of 'em.
All right, let's keep moving.
♪
[INDISTINCT DISTANT ARGUING]
[INDISTINCT ARGUING]
Sergey Volkov, Sara
Tandon! Get on the ground!
[GUNFIRE]
[SHOUTING IN UKRAINIAN]
♪
Go!
No, no, no! Do not move!
Get on the ground! Hey!
[TRIES SQUEALING]
- [YELLS]
- Stay down!
Stay down!
[TIRES SQUEALING]
[GROANS]
[MOTOR WHIRRING]
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]
That's some sort of PCC.
Yeah, but no pistol.
No, the murder weapon's
probably long gone.
I found these by the embryo tanks.
Consent forms, medical disclosures,
and custody transfers.
They're all from the same clinic,
a place called Hudson Fertility Group.
So some of the embryos
gotta be from there.
All right, let's go.
Ms. Moore, how did this work?
Our clients who undergo IVF,
they typically generate extra embryos.
They can donate them to science,
they can elect to have them
disposed of as medical waste.
That can be tough.
For religious people, especially.
Right.
So you match the donors
with the recipients?
Oh, no. There are charities for that.
They receive the embryos here,
match them with devout
couples with the promise
that these children
eventually will be raised
in faithful homes.
Right, so Hope Lifts was
one of these charities.
Yes.
Who did you speak to from Hope Lifts?
The lady who ran it.
Her credentials were impeccable.
Diana Hill?
Is that Diana Hill?
Yes.
[SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC]
Thank you.
♪
Ms. Tandon,
these charities perform
a real public service.
For faithful people
struggling with what to do
with extra embryos, people
who want to be loving parents.
And you knew that.
And you exploited it.
I can almost admire the business model.
I mean, you tell these women
they're gonna become U.S. citizens
so they pay for their own trafficking.
And your raw materials,
the embryos you get donated
from the fertility clinic,
it's just pure profit.
♪
But what's the endgame?
What's the plan here?
I mean, what are you
what are you gonna do with 400 embryos?
Lawyer.
Sara Tandon denies everything.
Other than that, she's
not saying a word.
Well, we have a solid case against her
on fraud related to the fake charity,
but the trafficking piece is
not a slam dunk by any stretch.
No, and there's no hard evidence
tying her to the murders
of Nadiya and Misha.
We can't even put Sara Tandon
at the baby farm at all.
How many years are we looking at
on the charges we feel good about?
Well, seven years, maybe.
What happened here is unspeakable.
As far as we know,
Sara Tandon is the architect
of this entire thing.
She stole these women's lives,
she stole their bodies for profit.
And you're saying she could
be out in, uh, three years?
Unless something changes, yes.
So we've got to chase
whatever leads we can.
We'll push forward here
on the charges we have
and put the rest together on the fly.
Do whatever we have to do to hold
Sara Tandon accountable
for this whole damn thing.
I got it.
The warrant landed, getting us
into Volkov and Sara Tandon's
encrypted Discord messages.
Let's hope there's
something useful in there,
not just Sara telling Volkov
to go take out the trash.
There's got to be something, right?
I mean, this can't just happen.
What, that a woman is murdered
within 6 inches of
you in broad daylight,
and you can't make the case?
- Yeah, that.
- Wait.
Hang on.
All right, check out
this flurry of messages
from November 30th between
Volkov, Sara Tandon,
and somebody.
"We'll take them all."
As in all of the embryos?
Who would want to buy 400 embryos?
Maybe they mean all the
babies that were set to be born
in the next few months.
Well, I don't mean to beat a dead horse,
but who would want 20
babies at the same time?
Look at that.
Sara Tandon says, "I can make
a delivery on December 2nd."
Well, that's yesterday.
So whoever's communicating
with them here,
let's try to tie these messages
to an IP address, to a location.
Got it.
[TENSE MUSIC]
♪
[ENGINE REVVING]
♪
Do it.
Clear!
- Clear!
- Clear!
Clear!
I don't think anybody's home.
Hey.
Main house is clear.
Well, check this out.
Oh, my God.
That's a Fowgeis.
Ancient Germanic thing the Vandals.
Been appropriated by
some very bad people.
If you hang this,
it means you're willing
to die for the cause.
- What's the cause?
- Hate.
We got one more structure to clear.
All right, let's go.
♪
Found a freaking bomb factory.
[WHISTLES] This is a lot of hardware.
So Volkov and Tandon
were talking to a bunch
of white supremacists.
White supremacists with an arsenal.
But what does a hate group
have to do with a baby mill?
Whatever the reason, we need
to get the bomb squad in here.
I'll give them a heads up.
- [BEEPING]
- Shh, hold on. You hear that?
- [BEEPING]
- Everyone out! Move, now!
- Move! Move! Move!
- Everyone out, now!
- Let's go, let's go!
- Now!
- Move, move!
- Everybody out, now!
♪
[PANTING]
[GROANING]
♪
Oh, my God.
Bruno. Oh, God.
- Ow.
- Oh, God.
I need a bus, now!
You're okay. [PANTING]
♪
[DRAMATIC MUSIC]
♪
[WOLF HOWLS]