Deep Cover · Pushkin Industries

Snowball - Episode 6: Stakeout

December 8, 2025·42 min·2 clips

Oli knocks on Leslie Mnookian's car window in a California supermarket car park after a decade-long investigation.

The scene is tense from the first move. Ollie compares it to game day, where months of training come down to seconds on the field. Simon is beside him. They are sitting in a ridiculous American muscle car, close enough that the trail has brought them to a small Californian town and maybe to Leslie herself. The evidence has piled up: fraud, fake bank statements, court documents, police reports, and even a fake lawyer. Leslie does not know what Ollie has in front of him. He thinks some of it may still be sitting with her, so he asks carefully and lets the silence press in. Her first answer is small. She says some of the ways she tried to get loans may not have been totally kosher. Ollie asks what she means, and the answer moves toward finances she says she could have revealed more fully. That understatement does a lot of work. Ollie's narration keeps the moment steady, so the pressure comes from the gap between the paperwork and her cautious phrasing. Then the conversation turns more emotional. Leslie says the last 12 years have been upsetting, full of phone calls, blame, and requests for paperwork. She says she signed over the business. She also says she never got to tell her side because she was told she would go to jail if she entered the country. When Ollie asks what closure would look like, she says it is too late, then reaches for goodbye, apology, mistakes, and bad decisions.

As heard by us

A stakeout turns into a tense, emotional exchange where Leslie Mnookian offers limited regret, disputed blame, and no clean reckoning.

Episode 6 finally brings Snowball within reach of Leslie Mnookian. Ollie and his brother Simon are sitting in a ridiculous American muscle car, keyed up after months of digging, waiting to see whether the investigation will turn into a face to face encounter.

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Why you'd press play

Want the tension of a long investigation that finally lands in a face-to-face?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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