Original subtitles

In the criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate

equally important groups, the police who investigate crime and the district

attorneys who prosecute the offenders.

These are their stories.

It's okay.

I got you. I got you.

I'm sorry.

Help me. That's the plan, love. Come on.

What's your name?

Nadia. Nadia.

Said she walked in? 20 minutes ago.

Won't say what happened. She'll only give us her first name, Nadia. 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.

Nadia, see you again.

Attention,

all units, be on the lookout for a white female, 20s, Nadia Doe, gray sweats,

tennis shoes, fled Mercy Hospital, believed on foot, requires medical

That's just a few blocks away, right?

Wife and I joined this new gym ever since we keep getting peppered with ads

longevity supplements and testosterone boosters for men of a certain age.

And you qualify?

Apparently.

Hey, I think that's the Nadia Doe.

Nadia?

Nadia, right?

Nadia? Okay.

It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. We're going to get you some help.

Sector 27, we made contact with Nadia Doe, the bullet from the ER.

Hey, Nadia, why don't you come take a seat in our car, okay? Come get warm.

You're safe, okay?

It's safe now, all right?

Nadia, look, I promise.

Shots fired. Shots fired. Tickets in 2, 10, 75.

I need to post an all -fail unit to 28th and left.

Go, go, go.

I guess you'd be Westbound on 31. Jersey plates.

Alpha, Romeo, George, 264.

Jess, what the hell happened?

God, you have so much blood here. It's okay. Don't worry about it. One shot to

the head from a 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.

This is some kind of a prayer card.

Found it in the pocket of her sweats.

Timchenko.

I'm going to get this to Finn. 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 and see what they missed before Nadia made a run for

This was at 11 .36 a .m.

That's the guy.

Okay, and it was after you told Nadia that her brother was here that she took

off, right? Okay.

You think there's some connection?

He seemed like a super nice guy.

Yeah, maybe not so much.

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.

Did he show an ID when he came in? No.

Okay, so we don't have a name.

But you got a face? Yeah.

That's not nothing.

Hey, I got a decent image of the perp. I'm going to send it on over. Where are

we on the vehicle?

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. He killed someone in broad daylight and did not

hesitate to shoot at me, so let's be ready, okay?

Go.

Honey, you're going to be with your father this evening. Ma 'am, ma 'am.

What? Come on, come on, come on. All right, here we go.

Get back! Get back! Get back!

Hey.

Hey, he says the fire was started with a flare, intentionally, obviously, and

that any potential DNA evidence in that vehicle is gone.

ESU was scouring cameras in the area. No dice so far. And these two had direct

access to Penn Station from the garage.

Yup. Two minutes after parking, they'd be on the subway, Amtrak, Jersey

you name it. What about the plates on the SUV?

Stolen. Oh, 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 one's answers were circling the drain.

Autopsy's in.

Nadia Dill was not the victim of sexual assault.

She was not.

The nurse at the ER says she was. She got it wrong.

Nadia 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? 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.

Nadia Tetsun. That's Nadia's real name. Nadia Tetsun. All right.

Okay. The name on the prayer card is Simchenko.

He's a priest.

He presides over Nadia's church back in Ukraine.

You got in touch with him? Yeah, I just talked to him on the phone. He said

Nadia flew out here about two months ago.

You say why?

Nobody said she came by herself.

Okay, so we can run it against Pastor Manifest, figure out when and how Nadia

got to the U .S.

Absolutely. Thanks, Simchenko. Thank you.

There's our girl. And clearly pregnant.

11 .14 a .m., August 2nd. Direct flight from Kyiv?

Not this day anymore. Ukrainian airspace is closed.

She's waiting near Bags Lane 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.

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

Nadia at JFK and men leaving seven minutes later out of short -term parking

Nadia, which means, you know what that means. That means that...

That you were the last person to see her alive, and that's a strike.

Yeah, OK. No, I'm a nobody. No, no. Today, today, you're definitely a

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 lens in my

account. I don't have any questions. All right, so after you picked up Nadia at

JFK, where did you take her?

Lady. It's Captain.

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 Nadia at JFK,

technically your actions crossed international borders, and you used the

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

wonder if not talking was the right decision.

Is she insane?

Good luck.

Hey, wait.

That mean you got something to say? Something useful?

Yeah.

I was told Benson and Brady this way dropped off Nadia after she got to the

Had an abandoned power plant?

Yeah, we've been set up on him, but there's no signs of life in there.

No way of knowing what's inside.

No way to find out.

NYPD!

Hey, careful.

It doesn't look like anybody's been here for a while.

Why would he bring Nadia here?

What about that door?

Maybe that light?

Ready?

Saw that?

Bleach. Yeah.

Found the bleach smell.

Wow. Found the bleach over here.

These doors locked from the outside.

Whoever was sleeping here was locked inside.

A bunch of baby pacifiers over here.

Most of them are still in the packaging.

It's still warm.

It just left.

Guys!

They're like a maternity ward.

So they brought Nadia to this place and then they kept her here?

There's a bunch of other women.

Jesus.

Is that what we're looking at?

Some kind of baby mill?

So, Jess... The ME found tropoblastic degeneration in Nadia's uterus

and an inflamed endometrium. All right, English, por favor. Okay, so Nadia

didn't give birth. She suffered a miscarriage, but here's what's strange,

that the fetal DNA that was found in her uterine lining is wholly unrelated to

Nadia's DNA.

So she was a surrogate, carrying someone else's baby.

Is that what this is? Nadia was flown to the U .S. to give birth to someone

else's child? Not just Nadia.

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.

Purchasing 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 Nadia to the ER. It's down on Halfpin and 2nd.

Bruno.

I couldn't figure out how Nadia got from the abandoned power plant to the ER,

and I got a hit.

Caught this on a security camera outside a bodega three blocks from the ER.

There's Nadia 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

a hat. There's sunflower on it. You run the plates?

They're stolen from Staten Island.

Created an ALPR hot list. The car got ticketed for a parking meter violation,

I got a payment. But what's this woman doing here?

Hey, Brady, check this out.

No, I cannot help.

Okay, will you look again, please? Because 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

hands are tied. I have to make a 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?

I don't know, because you just told the driver that...

She's going on death row. Well, we're allowed to lie to them. Yes, I know

but then you just told the priest that you're going to 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 six inches from you. She pushed me out of

the way, Liv.

What?

She what?

Nadia 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.

Paulina, we need to understand what happened to you, to Nadia.

So, please, let's just start at the beginning, okay?

Okay.

Well...

A man found me and Nadia back home in Ukraine, and many others too.

And this man, he said I would receive a baby.

An embryo?

Yes. He brought the embryo from the U .S., said that he would take me to a

doctor near Kiev 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.

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.

When we arrived, when we were locked away.

Then we knew it was all a lie.

What happens to the baby?

I don't know.

When one of us gives birth, they are just gone.

What about Nadia?

Something was wrong with her baby.

They brought her to the bed, but they could not save the baby.

The pain was horrible.

And it became clear they were not going to help her. So we escaped.

We stole the keys to that car.

And we ran.

And brought her to the hospital.

Who was involved in all this? 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. Well, can you describe him?

Average.

Quiet.

About 35.

Paulina, we can take you to a safe house where nobody's going to be able 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

I'll leave that with you. Thank you.

There are 20 pregnant women out there somewhere.

You want to play follow the embryo? 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. 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

approval process.

I mean...

There can only be so many people that apply for that. So we pull the

applications and see who's flying snowflakes to Ukraine.

Lou, I think it worked.

I'm right.

Is Amisha the nickname for Mikhail in Russia?

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 Paulina Kravitz gave us. And they left

an apartment in Long Island City as his home address.

Okay, pull this picture, bring it over to Paulina. If she says that's the guy,

that's the guy. Uh -huh.

He lives here.

All right, get back downstairs. We're safe.

Kitchen clear.

Bathroom clear.

Misha, hold on.

Show me your hands, but get on the ground.

Get on the ground!

Show me your hands!

Doesn't look like Misha is going to be much help.

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.

We have no idea who they are.

We just found some WhatsApp messages from somebody.

Demanded 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. Says give us our damn baby or

we're coming at you with everything we've got.

Misha never responded.

Hi, Lieutenant Brady, Captain Benson, NYPD.

Can I help you? Yeah, well, we hope so. Is this your residence?

It's his place now. We just work here. Right, right. And your name?

Carrie, Carrie Valenti. Who is it, honey?

What's this about?

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.

What?

Could we come inside?

Uh, yeah. Yes.

I'm just putting the baby down for now. Give me a sec. Thank you.

Misha Orlov was shot today in his apartment at 11 .30 a .m., we think. Can

tell us where you were?

Uh, Jason was at work.

The baby was at my mom's. I was here. I had a bunch of Zooms.

You can't possibly think we had anything. Well, I have a text I'd like

you. Give us our damn baby or we're coming at you with everything we've got.

Not my finest moment, but we had nothing to do with this. You're going to 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, texting 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

to 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

Misha the payment, and then he just ghosted us. He vanished.

Well, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but we believe that you acquired

son unwittingly on the black market.

What? If that's what you think. We're not saying another word.

In fact, I think it's time that you leave. Well, we're not leaving until

We're not talking without a lawyer.

Get the hell out of our house. A lawyer? Why would you need a lawyer unless

you're involved? Jess, I'm not... He said lawyer.

This is a highly unusual situation.

But we understand that you need assurances before you'll share more

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

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 identity and 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 Nadia Tetsun and Misha Orlov, and we

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

even the existence of your son.

They're right. This court order, this is as much protection as the law provides.

Mrs. Valente, we get it. We want you to live your life.

to raise your son.

But what that means is that you need to do the right thing as well.

So we need you to tell us everything that you know.

I can't. I can't. This 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

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.

The Valentis identified the charity they used to adopt their baby as this outfit

called Hope Lifts. We ran it down.

It is fraudulent, like we figured.

The principal's registered the charity under false names and addresses in

Malta? Apparently it's a hotbed for stuff like this. I mean, all kinds of

They still use fax machines, too. Oh, a literal paper trail. I've missed those.

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.

That's who the Valenti said delivered their son to their front door.

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 Carrie Valenti, handing them their adopted son?

So? We believe that child is the 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. 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

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.

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. Come on, come on, come on.

We're going to talk about what daddy does for work. Stop!

Leave!

It's up to you.

We can do this however you want.

So, according to your lawyer buddy, Derek Hobbs, This is the husband and

team that operated a fraudulent charity.

Sergey Volkov and Sarah Tandon.

What do we know about them? Okay, Volkov's a Russian national, been in the

for a decade.

Short sheet, nothing remarkable, nothing violent.

Sarah Tandon, well, couldn't find much on her.

No property holdings, no criminal record, no business licenses. But this

the E .R. Now, this is the guy who claimed to be Nadia's brother, then put

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.

Went back to the original synth. Which was?

Theft of the plates that were on the SUV Volkov was driving.

And that almost took your eyebrows off in the parking garage?

Go on, check this out. I found some security footage from the block where

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 in the Verrazano Narrows. They tracked the van with Argus

to a warehouse in Staten Island.

Hit it.

It's a cryobank.

These are frozen embryos.

Snowflakes. There's got to be hundreds of them.

All right, let's keep moving.

Sergey Volkov, Sarah Tanner, get on the ground!

Some sort of PCC.

Yeah, but no pistol.

Murder weapon's probably long gone.

Found these bloody 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. Warren, 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?

No, there are charities for that.

They receive the embryos here, match them with devout couples with the

that these children eventually will be raised in faithful homes.

Right, so Hopeless is one of these charities.

Yes. Who did you speak to from Hopeless?

The lady who ran it.

Her credentials were impeccable. Diana Hill?

Is that Diana Hill?

Yes.

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 going to become U .S. citizens so they

for their own trafficking, and your raw materials, the embryos you get donated

from the fertility clinic, it's a sure profit.

But what's the endgame?

What's the plan here? I mean, what are you gonna do with 400 embryos?

Lawyer.

Sarah Tandon denies everything. Other than that, she's not saying a word.

No, we have a solid case against her on fraud related to the fake charity, but

the trafficking piece is not a slim dunk by any stretch. And there's no hard

evidence tying it to the murders of Nadia and Misha. We can't even put Sarah

Tandon at the baby farm at all. How many years are we looking at on the charges

we feel good about?

Seven years, maybe. What happened here is unspeakable. As far as we know, Sarah

Tandon is the architect of this entire thing. She stole these women's lives.

stole their bodies.

For profit. And you're saying she could be out in 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 haven't put the rest together on the fly.

Do whatever we have to do to hold Sarah Tandon accountable for this whole damn

thing.

Got it. The warrant landed.

Getting us into Volkov and Sarah Tandon's encrypted Discord messages.

Let's hope there's something useful in there and not just Sarah telling Volkov

to go take out the trash.

There's got to be something right. I mean, this can't just happen. What, that

woman is murdered within six inches of you in broad daylight and you can't make

the case? Yeah, that. Wait, hang on.

I checked out this flurry of messages from November 30th between Volkov, Sarah

Tandon, and somebody.

We'll take them all.

And then...

All the embryos? Who would want to buy 400 embryos? Maybe they mean all the

babies that were said to be born in the next few months. Oh, I don't mean to

beat a dead horse, but who would want 20 babies at the same time? Look at that.

Sarah 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.

I don't think anybody's home.

Hey.

Main house is clear.

Check this out.

My God.

It's a bow guy.

Ancient Germanic thing.

Vandals.

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've got one more structure to clear.

All right, let's go.

the freaking bomb factory.

There's a lot of hardware.

So, Volkov and Tandon were talking to a bunch of white supremacists. White

supremacists with an arsenal.

But what did the hate group have to do with the baby milk? Whatever the reason,

we need to get the bomb squad in here. I'll give them a heads up. Shh, hold on.

You hear that?

Everyone out!

Move now! Everyone out now! Move!

Move! Move!

Everybody out, now!

Oh, God.

I need a buck now.