Introducing Deep Cover Presents: Snowball

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Hot Money: Agent of Chaos
Episode: Introducing Deep Cover Presents: Snowball
Date: November 10, 2025
Host: Ollie Wards (of Unravel and Pushkin Industries)
Featured: Wards Family and friends, Deep Cover's Jake Halpern

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Overview

This episode is a crossover feature: "Hot Money: Agent of Chaos" introduces listeners to "Deep Cover Presents: Snowball," an investigative podcast series spearheaded by Ollie Wards. The story pivots from the international drama of financial fraud (Wirecard) to the deeply personal account of Ollie’s own family, who fell victim to a masterful conwoman, Leslie Mnookian. This episode serves as a gripping preview, drawing listeners into a journey of financial ruin, family trust shattered, and the pursuit of a cunning grifter across continents.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Spark of Suspicion (03:23–04:21)

• Ollie Wards reflects on his role as MC at his brother Greg's wedding, battling a private discomfort about the bride, Leslie.
• Foreshadowing: His unease becomes warranted when Leslie leaves, derailing not just a marriage, but devastating the entire family financially and emotionally.
• Quote: “It wasn’t just my brother’s marriage that fell apart. My whole family went down with it and none of us ever saw her again.” — Ollie Wards (04:08)

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2. First Impressions of Leslie (04:21–07:00)

• Family and friends describe Leslie’s allure—a “dark, vivacious” Californian charisma, quick intimacy with people, and a mysterious ability to draw people into her orbit.
• Greg (Brother): “When you marry someone, you feel like you really know them.” (04:33)
• The family nicknames her "The Black Widow," foreshadowing the devastation ahead.

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3. The Catastrophic Loss (05:02–06:36)

• David (Dad) recounts the moment he is informed in his café that the family business is being liquidated. The shock is visceral: “I almost fainted. I went blank. I could feel the draining of blood from my face.” (05:31)
• The family soon learns they lost their home and over a million dollars in savings—becoming homeless in their 60s.

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4. The Anatomy of the Con (07:49–13:00)

• Family conversations reveal little red flags—from Leslie’s extravagant, sometimes inexplicable generosity to odd tales about her past.
• Simon (Oldest Brother): “They kind of knew there was some fuckery.” (08:16)
• Ollie sets up the central investigative question: Who did Leslie Mnookian say she was, and who was she really?

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5. Greg and Leslie: Whirlwind Romance (09:59–21:12)

• Greg’s background: Americanophile, trusting, and perhaps a little naive.
• Leslie’s seduction of Greg: Their relationship escalates rapidly from a London house party, spurred by her stories of escape from Hawaiian gangsters.
• Key Anecdote: Leslie claims she ran a glamorous bar in Maui, escaped drug dealers, and fled to Europe with family aid—a story full of drama and likely fabrication.
• Greg: “It was more like the concept of America as, you know, it’s the biggest economy in the world. What they do matters...” (12:23)
• The proposal: Christmas, snow, Disneyland Paris—a fairy-tale setting masking mounting deception.

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6. Meet the Mnookians: California & the Courthouse Wedding (20:02–23:46)

• Greg’s first U.S. visit: Reality does not match Leslie’s tales of privilege—her family and home are strikingly ordinary.
• Leslie’s parents appear strict, conservative, and emotionally distant. Greg and Leslie marry quietly, in a separate-bed situation even post-wedding, before moving to New Zealand.

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7. Fact vs. Fiction: Leslie’s Web of Lies (23:46–27:43)

• Family confusion: Even Leslie’s age, identity and background are inconsistent. Claims of a “trust fund” evaporate under scrutiny. She has two birthdays, two passports, stories of Armenian backstories, and invented parentage.
• Greg: “None of that’s true.” (24:15)
• Revealed: Leslie was adopted, her “dad” made water tanks (not armaments) for the US Army, and her trust fund was a fantasy.

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8. Social Chameleon: Winning Over Friends and Family (28:08–34:27)

• Simon and friends are swept up in Leslie’s dynamic presence—but her quick generosity and extravagance (“always showering us in gifts, free alcohol, this is amazing”) begin to seem suspicious (30:16).
• Julie (Mum) is taken in too: “Personality, bubbly. She was rather lovely...very American.” (32:20)
• Leslie identifies the Dragonfly Cafe as her business destiny—based, dubiously, on her own dragonfly tattoo.

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9. Buying the Dream: The Dragonfly Café Catastrophe (34:27–39:25)

• Mum and Dad guarantee a $1.5 million loan for Leslie to buy the café property and business, based on trust, family lawyer recommendations, and supposedly ironclad U.S. trust fund backing. They sign as guarantors despite not being part-owners.
• David (Dad): “We did stick our necks out.” (37:27)

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10. The ‘Event’: The Wedding and Doubts Surface (39:39–44:44)

• The wedding, aka “The Event”, is lavish but odd: nearly all guests are from Greg’s side, Leslie’s family is aloof, and bridesmaid positions are filled by recent acquaintances, not lifelong friends.
• Guests joke about whether Leslie’s parents are real or “hired actors”: “Like I didn’t like honestly like to this day I have no idea if that’s her parents.” — Simon (Oldest Brother) (43:03)
• Early signs of Leslie’s fraudulency: faking government documents, lying about legal troubles, and manipulating those around her.

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11. Unravelling: Trouble at the Café & Breakdown of Trust (44:44–47:42)

• Operational chaos: staff unpaid, bills accumulating, basic utilities running dry. Leslie is evasive and secretive.
• Greg’s tipping point: Milk supplier never paid; Leslie brushes concerns aside. The family is blocked at every effort to see financial records, despite risking their livelihood for her.
• David (Dad): “You guys had put money on the line, but not signed up to be able to see anything. Isn’t that weird?” (47:00)

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12. The Final Confrontation and The "Snowball" Warning (47:42–49:33)

• Greg sends Leslie back to the U.S., hoping to investigate undisturbed. Their relationship is now “frosty, just completely untrusting on both sides.” (48:07)
• Leslie’s parting words: “The snowball is about to hit you.” (48:40)
  This moment becomes the season’s central metaphor—the rolling consequences of Leslie’s deceit are about to bury the family.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Greg: “When you marry someone, you feel like you really know them.” (04:33)
• Phil (Bar Owner): “She was kind of quite engaging, very chatty, she knew how to sort of work people.” (15:37)
• Greg: “Well, I guess that’s how naive I was.” (12:50)
• Greg: “None of that’s true.” (24:15) — upon reflection, acknowledging the falsehood of Leslie’s saga.
• Narrator/Ollie: “We joked that they were hired actors because...they definitely didn’t fit the profile of who you’d think her parents would be.” (42:39)
• Greg (parting with Leslie): “The snowball is about to hit you.” (48:40)

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Structure & Flow

• Intimate and conversational — Family members recount memories with candor, humor, and visible hurt.
• Investigative tone — Ollie assembles a documentary mosaic of interviews, family tapes, and personal narrative.
• Sharp humor and Kiwi candor give weight and nuance to the tragic undertones.

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Important Timestamps

• 03:23–04:21: Ollie’s initial suspicions and the wedding setup.
• 05:02–06:36: The family's financial collapse is revealed.
• 09:59–13:00: How Greg and Leslie met and the beginnings of her con.
• 20:02–23:46: Meeting Leslie’s parents and the courthouse wedding.
• 28:08–34:27: Early days in New Zealand, family and friends get swept up.
• 34:27–39:25: The family invests in the Dragonfly Café.
• 39:39–44:44: The wedding (“The Event”)—red flags everywhere.
• 44:44–47:42: Trouble at the café—unpaid bills, mounting stress.
• 47:42–49:33: Leslie leaves for the U.S., drops the “snowball” warning.

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Final Thoughts

This episode sets up "Snowball" as a true crime saga layered with family pain, cultural naivety, and the manipulation of trust. It’s both a thriller and a cautionary tale about how a con unfolds—not just through financial trickery, but by weaponizing personal relationships and vulnerabilities.

Listeners are left on a razor’s edge, awaiting the crash of the “snowball”—the full fallout of Leslie’s deception and what it reveals about the nature of trust, identity, and family.

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Transcript

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

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[David (Dad)]

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[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

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[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

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[Julie (Mum)]

Pushkin.

[Jake Halpern (Deep Cover Host)]

Hey listeners, I'm Jake Halpern, host of the Deep Cover Podcast. I'm dropping by to share an episode of Deep Cover Presents Snowball. It's the tale of a family who lost everything due to one ruthless scammer. Snowball follows journalist Ollie Wards as he unravels the wild story of how his own family was taken in and taken down by a charming con woman from California and he tries to find out where she is. Now we're talking financial ruin, shattered trust, and a mystery that stretches across continents and decades. It's got all the twists and turns you'd expect from a high stakes crime thriller, only it's all true. Here's a preview. I hope you enjoyed the story, which was meticulously investigated by Ollie Wards and the Unravel Podcast team in Australia. And if you can't wait to find out what happens, binge episodes of Deep Cover Presents Snowball early and ad free with a Pushkin plus subscription. Find Pushkin plus on the Deep Cover show page in Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin fm. Plus.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

This series contains occasional course language. I was the MC at my brother's wedding. I did all the usual stuff. Housekeeping, toasts. I tried to crack a few jokes, but inside I had a nagging sense of unease about my brother's charismatic Californian bride. It was a feeling that some things just didn't add up. I didn't tell anyone how I felt. Probably couldn't have explained it. Anyway, my brother was happy. That's what matters, right? But maybe I should have paid more attention to that feeling because within a few months, she had taken off to the us. It wasn't just my brother's marriage that fell apart. My whole family went down with it and none of us ever saw her again.

[Phil (Bar Owner)]

This woman's a bit kind of like, you know, not what she claims to be.

[Julie (Mum)]

She had this dark, vivacious surface skin and look to her.

[Greg (Brother)]

I guess when you marry someone, you feel like you really know.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

And that was her allure. You just followed her. She's a manipulative con artist.

[Greg (Brother)]

Standby.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

We call her the Black Widow.

[Greg (Brother)]

The snowball is about to hit you.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

When my mum and dad found out that they had lost everything. It was during the Sunday lunchtime rush in a country New Zealand cafe. They had ended up running that cafe. And that day, dad was serving behind.

[David (Dad)]

The counter, taking orders, passing them back to the chefs at the back. Next order, da, da, da, add it all up. Da, da, da.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Then he noticed a guy join the back of the line. It wasn't a random customer. Dad recognised him. And when this guy got to the front of the queue, he ordered.

[David (Dad)]

And he said to me, I'll have a so and so and so and so. And I've come today to tell you that we are going to liquidate you. I almost fainted. I went blank. I could feel the draining of blood from my face. I must have been as white as a sheet.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

My mum realised something was up.

[Julie (Mum)]

I'm busy bringing in dishes and doing whatever. And then I looked at dad. He'd stepped to one side and he came to me and he looked absolutely dreadful, utterly drained. And I just carried on. We didn't have time to reflect on things till later in the day. And what they all meant.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

What it all meant was Mum and Dad had lost their life. Savings more than a million dollars. And a few days later, they found out they were homeless.

[David (Dad)]

A court bailiff presented us with a paper saying our house was to be forfeited to the bank. And I said to the guy, I'm not going to sign that. And he said, it's going to happen. You don't need to sign anything. And he just threw it on the desk and walked out.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

My parents, in their 60s, went from living in a leafy Auckland suburb to squatting in the basement at my auntie's house. As my family tried to understand what had happened, they realised they might have been the victims of an elaborate con job. I was living overseas through most of this. Recently, I started learning about what happened and I kind of felt guilty I wasn't there when the walls fell down around everyone. So now I want to help figure things out. I normally work behind the scenes at an Australian radio station, Triple J, helping other people tell stories. But I knew I needed to investigate this story of my own. It was like the plot of a movie, one you'd never expect to feature. A pretty average Kiwi family. Things got weird and some of it's kind of funny.

[David (Dad)]

There's also a lot of randomness there.

[Greg (Brother)]

With the story smuggled out of Armenia.

[Advertiser/Indeed Representative]

What?

[David (Dad)]

Whoa.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Explain.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

Oh, my fucking God.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Are you serious?

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

I mean, can I talk about drugs? This is weird. This is not how a normal friendship works. We were like her little ducklings, following behind her.

[David (Dad)]

Lots of little intrigues.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

$30,000. I don't know where this money went.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

They kind of knew that there was some fuckery.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

We joked that they were hired actors.

[Julie (Mum)]

Personality, bubbly. She was rather lovely.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

He was broke.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

She took every fucking thing he had.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

The stranger things get, the more questions I have about what happened. Like, why did this American woman con my family? How did she just get away? And who really is Leslie Mnookian? In this season of Unravel, I'm gonna find some answers. And to do it, I'm gonna have to travel across the world to track Leslie down. I'm Ollie Wards and this is Snow. Snowball.

[Greg (Brother)]

So this is recording, is it? Is there an option to edit it afterwards?

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

It's not a test. Surely there's no better subject than yourself.

[Greg (Brother)]

So it's one or two sentences to describe who I am.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Yeah.

[Greg (Brother)]

Okay. I'm a kiwi male, late 30s, probably quite typical. Trying to pay the mortgage and all the bills and look after his everyone as best I can in the process, I guess.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

My brother Greg is typical in lots of ways. He'd be happy with a $10 haircut, short back and sides. But he definitely has his quirks, like he'll read a street map of a foreign city before bed like it's a novel. The other thing to know about Greg that partly got us into all of this is that he loves everything to do with America.

[Greg (Brother)]

There's a term for people interested in Europe, which is Europhile, I think. I was an Americanophile.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

So, like, one night recently I was brushing my teeth and I got a surprise show and tell. Greg, you've just come out and shown something. What do you got here?

[Greg (Brother)]

It's a $2 US note, and I'm told that they're quite rare and they're lucky for either the. I think it's the North Koreans. Anyway, that's me.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Now. This whole thing starts when Greg went off on his OE back in 2006. In New Zealand, your OE, or overseas experience, is kind of like a gap year after school or uni. It's where Kiwis live abroad, drink foreign beer and have people laugh at us for the different words we have for stuff like chilly bin. That's an esky if you're in Australia. Or a cooler box pretty much anywhere else. Chilly bin. Anyway, as a Kiwi, it was easier for Greg to work in the UK than in the us, so he put his American dreams on hold and set himself up in London. One night he was at a house party wearing his favourite American football style jacket that makes him look like a high school jock. So he's wandering through the party, he steps outside to a courtyard and his ears prick up.

[Greg (Brother)]

North American accents used to catch my attention.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

In the corner of the courtyard, there's a woman with long dark hair smoking a cigarette. She's leading a conversation with the confidence just oozing out of her.

[Greg (Brother)]

Well, let's throw in there Kim Kardashian look alike, sophisticated female operative ready to woo me as well.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

That sophistication might have been to do with her being a fair bit older than Greg. Leslie was late 30s, Greg was mid 20s. Greg's not a smoker, but he thought he had smoked too. He wanted to talk and so he met Leslie. As they chatted in the dimly lit courtyard, Greg started to see the world in her. Literally.

[Greg (Brother)]

It was more like the concept of America as, you know, it's the biggest economy in the world. What they do actually matters to most people on the planet.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

I've never heard of another guy describing being attracted to a girl because of the size of her Economy, but that's.

[Greg (Brother)]

My brother, you know, if you're interested in politics, they are a superpower.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Bit of a leap to a girl you meet at a house party, though, isn't it?

[Greg (Brother)]

Well, I guess that's how naive I was.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Greg was also taken in by Lesley's wild story about why she was in London.

[Greg (Brother)]

So it originally was to escape from Hawaii because some bad people in Hawaii were trying to attack her, you know, because they'd frauded her and were trying to do bad stuff to her and her mum and dad sent her to Europe to escape them.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Lesley would tell everyone some version of the story. I actually heard it myself. It went like this. Before she was in London, Leslie owned the coolest bar, restaurant and nightclub on the island of Maui in Hawaii. The bar was called the Breakwater. Things were going well until one day, Leslie caught the head security guard dealing drugs out of the back entrance. When she confronted him, he told her he planned to keep selling drugs. She shouldn't try to stop him. From there, things deteriorated with the locals. Like the electricity got cut off at the restaurant through a cousin at the power company. Leslie said it all culminated one night when she was at home hearing people breaking in. She hid under the bed. From there, she saw the head of security with some other guys come in carrying sugar cane knives. While they looked for her, they were talking about burying her in the fields. She was lucky, though, they didn't look under the bed. As soon as they left, Leslie went to the airport, her dad chartered a plane and she escaped to Europe. So according to Leslie, that's how she ended up laying low in London. And all of this was fascinating to Greg. He started introducing Leslie to his mates. Their relationship seemed a normal sort of relationship, aside from the fact that it got very intense very quickly.

[David (Dad)]

But you would expect that of Greg. He's not a game player and he.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Wears his heart on his sleeve. So if he's into you, you'd find out pretty quickly.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

My initial thoughts was that she was really open and friendly, maybe a bit too friendly, but.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

What do you mean by that?

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

She just gave a lot. Like, she just was pretty quick to chat and want to hang out and make plans. And I remember thinking it was quite full on that she was so open so quickly. Maybe that's it.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

In London, Lesley managed a couple of bars.

[Phil (Bar Owner)]

She was very vivacious, bubbly, kind of effervescent personality, bubbly Californian type manner, you know, she was kind of quite engaging, very chatty, you know, she knew how to sort of work people.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Phil Owned one of the bars Leslie worked in. He saw my brother coming in all the time.

[Phil (Bar Owner)]

I can remember Greg, I remember Leslie bringing him into the bar and introducing me to, to him. Hell of a nice guy. Typical sort of Kiwi in London, working hard. And then he'd come into the bar during the, in the evenings to, to wind down a bit. And he had a, you know, what I'd probably describe as a certain naivety about him at the time. And I remember sort of thinking, you know, you had Leslie, who was this sort of very confident kind of, you know, thing, and, and there was Greg, who was quieter and kind of, you know, so you could see the, the dynamic there.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Leslie would hook Greg in his mates up with drinks.

[Greg (Brother)]

You know, we suddenly were invited to a bar and there's bloody buckets of beer being brought to our VIP table in the corner in the city of London with business people around. And it was like, I'm a backpacker and I'm in one of the world's financial capitals getting bear rained on me.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

So you felt like a bit of a rock star or something?

[Greg (Brother)]

Yeah, I did. To be fair, yes.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Greg's friend Andy did wonder where it was all coming from. And she said, oh, it's all going on the tabs of different local law firms, so, you know, that all come to settle up and there'd be a.

[David (Dad)]

Few extra platters and bottles of wine.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

That was just one of her crafty ways of showing all her friends a good time, I suppose. Things were getting pretty serious between Greg and Lesley. And as the saying goes, first comes love, then comes me. Wanting to meet your new bae. I flew to London to meet my brother's American dream girl. My first impression was that Leslie knew stuff. She had been everywhere and done everything. I started saying all the time, Leslie knows, and she loved that. We joked about getting T shirts made. I was only partly being sarcastic. Leslie told me about how she was from Orange County, California. She said that she was a trust fund type kid and so were her friends. And she said that her dad was rich from selling tanks to the U.S. army. So it was all pretty impressive. But I have to admit I was nervous they'd end up together. Somehow Lesley seemed to have a power over Greg, like he wasn't himself. I wondered if it was because she was so much older than him. But I didn't really dwell on that stuff, though, because I remember seeing how much Greg loved her. His arm was constantly around Lesley, so I was happy for him. After only a few months, they moved in together. Things were going quickly but they were about to go into hyperdrive. The winter after they first met, Greg proposed to Leslie. It was snowing on Christmas Day and they were at Disneyland in Paris.

[Greg (Brother)]

She honestly was buying everything like Donald Duck, keyrings, sherbet, elf bloody hats. We had a really nice dinner at, I think that movie Johnny Depp was in, Pirates of the Caribbean. So they've got a really cool restaurant, beautiful food, but.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

So you, you had a ring burning a hole in your pocket?

[Greg (Brother)]

Honestly, I don't even remember if I had a ring or I didn't. I don't think I did.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

You remember the Johnny Depp Pirates of the Caribbean restaurant?

[Greg (Brother)]

Look, Ollie, the whole thing is the entire time I was in Europe, I was on a bit of a cloud nine anyway, and it had been a great year, it was romantic, it was snowing, everything was cool and I thought this is the right thing to do.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

How did she react?

[Greg (Brother)]

I think a little bit surprised, but also said yes pretty quick as well. So yeah, mate, we were in love.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Just after he proposed, Greg followed his fiance back home to the superpower he had always wanted to visit.

[Greg (Brother)]

Yeah, first time in the United States.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

He expected New York to be paved in gold. Instead it was dirty.

[Greg (Brother)]

That was my first impression actually was this is, this is rough as guts.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Then it was to the west coast to stay in Leslie's childhood home in Orange County, California. Leslie always said that she was from a rich background, so you might imagine her house to be like a mansion off Laguna Beach.

[Greg (Brother)]

Nah, it's as middle income America as you could possibly find.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Leslie was warm and social, but it turned out that her mum and dad were the kind of parents that'll make you feel like you have to be on best behaviour. Her mum, Betty, with almost permanently pursed lips and her dad Andrew had a squint through glasses that was somehow at the same time suspicious and disinterested.

[Greg (Brother)]

I was put in a room next to her parents and she was put in her old room that she grew up in, bed in the same place with the same TV, VHS cassettes underneath the TV.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Remember, Leslie was nearly 40 years old at this point, but it was a separate bedroom situation at this house.

[Greg (Brother)]

There was a camera above the front door, like a CCTV camera. And I thought, oh, okay. Asked about it, you know, why you guys got security. And I remember the answer was the Hawaiians.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Something about that didn't add up for Greg, but he was on his best behaviour and let it go. He had bigger things on his mind. He was about to get married. To make immigration and paperwork stuff easier, as well as to avoid any discomfort with Leslie's conservative parents, they arranged to get hitched quickly at a courthouse in Santa Ana. Betty and Andrew seemed happy for them. Betty put on a nice dress, Andrew put on a jacket, and he drove them to the courthouse in his Cadillac. The ceremony was brief. The registry office was no frills, just a vase of flowers in the corner. Greg was happy, but he was feeling far away from home. And also, Greg thought making things official would change the sleeping arrangements. But it didn't.

[Greg (Brother)]

Yeah, separate. Bad situation. I was quite keen to not have that situation, but I respected it.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

But you are married now.

[Greg (Brother)]

Well, that's what was sort of, you know, I thought, hey, what else do I need to do here?

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Hey, man, I've done the deed, but I want to do the deed.

[Greg (Brother)]

Her parents were very, very conservative.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

It didn't matter too much, though, because they weren't planning on staying. As much as Greg was intrigued by America, he thought it'd be easier to settle at home in nz, where they were going to have a proper wedding. But when it came time to leave California, it seemed like Betty and Andrew didn't really want their daughter to go.

[Greg (Brother)]

They took us out to the airport to LAX and they cried shitloads when we left.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

But it was all, you know, moving to New Zealand for a new life. What was their thoughts on that?

[Greg (Brother)]

Oh, look, mate, I don't remember ever any optimism of Lesley moving to New Zealand. I honestly distinctly remember them being really sad, her leaving America again. Yeah. Now, whether that's because, you know, it's a loved one leaving to another land or another reason, who fucking knows?

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Like, what do you mean by that?

[Greg (Brother)]

What would another reason be like knowing that she's gonna get in trouble again somewhere else, they can't keep an eye on her. I don't know.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

It's late at night as Greg and I talk on the couch. We've never talked about all this stuff. I've kind of just wanted to help him forget. But now that we're talking, the more we get into what happened with Lesley, the more tangled up we get. I remember that the story was her dad worked in the armaments industry and, you know, we've heard that she's a trust fund baby and there's all this money in her family and, you know, she's from this sort of rich background and everything.

[Greg (Brother)]

So. None of that's true.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Say that again.

[Greg (Brother)]

Well, none of that's true, lest the part that and her dad told me that he built water tanks for the US Army. Not armaments. It was water tanks.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

I think she told me he built tanks for the U.S. army. Which, to be fair, is kind of true. But when somebody says that they're building tanks for the army, you don't think. Water tanks.

[Greg (Brother)]

Look, he was a smart guy. He was an engineer. So he was Iranian. He was born in. Sorry, he was. Actually, he was born in Tehran, but he was Armenian.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Leslie's dad?

[Greg (Brother)]

Yeah. Or. Sorry, no, adopted father. I never. No one's, as far as I know. Well, least of all us, has met the biological parents. She was adopted.

[Advertiser/Indeed Representative]

Right.

[David (Dad)]

Okay.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

I didn't know that, but, man, that.

[Greg (Brother)]

Brings in the other piece. That actually is where the trust fund supposedly came from was from her biological parents and what she got left behind, and then she was adopted out.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

So somebody adopted a baby with a trust fund?

[Greg (Brother)]

Well, this is where, like, you know, there's so many facets to someone's personality or stories or all. Or otherwise. Eventually, you actually just kind of give up asking and accept some of it and live in the moment and move on.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

It just. It's just. It just seems like, you know.

[Greg (Brother)]

Well, most of it is.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

I knew this story had lots of strange tentacles, but as I'm asking Greg this stuff, every answer seems to sprout more bizarre limbs for me to understand. Even just basic, really basic questions, like, how old is Lesley?

[Greg (Brother)]

Yeah, she was obviously a bit older than me.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

How much older?

[Greg (Brother)]

Well, she had two birth dates, so. So I never actually know. Yeah.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

What do you mean she had two birthdays?

[Greg (Brother)]

I feel like I ask.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

What do you mean?

[David (Dad)]

A lot?

[Greg (Brother)]

Yeah, that's fine. Well, in this situation, you should. It was either eight or ten years, I think.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

What do you mean she had two birthdays?

[Greg (Brother)]

She had two different passports as well.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

What?

[Greg (Brother)]

Whoa, wait.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Explain, explain.

[Greg (Brother)]

So there was a US passport, but there was other documentation with different birthdays.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

You didn't think that was strange?

[Greg (Brother)]

Well, yeah, sure. But there was, you know, plausible reasons.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Which were what?

[Greg (Brother)]

I think. Think for memory. It was smuggled out of Armenia.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

The passport was smuggled out of.

[Greg (Brother)]

No, she was.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Wow.

[Greg (Brother)]

So we've got that piece plus all the Hawaiians attacking her. Mate, she's an enigma.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

Oh, Oliver.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Hey, bro.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

What?

[David (Dad)]

Yeah.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

I want you to meet my older brother, Simon.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

My name's Simon. I'm your brother.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

I'm the youngest of us brothers. Greg is in the middle. Simon's the oldest. Simon can be intimidating, but he's also charismatic. Like, he'd gatecrash your party and then be the life of it. He's got a shaved head, thick black beard. Can you like in a few sentences just describe yourself for people listening? Like, you know, how would you, in a couple of sentences sum yourself up?

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

I don't know, I'm an artist.

[Greg (Brother)]

A lover?

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

No, no, I'm a brother. Like what do you mean?

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

For Kiwis at home like Simon, when Leslie Mnookian turned up, she was pretty full on. She was a real different character to have around.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

Yeah, it was just a bit, it was a bit weird and to tell you the truth, the only interaction I've ever had with an American, I think like a proper American, like she's like the quintessential kind of Kelly chick with that strong accent. I'd just seen that on tv, just interactions with her. I remember it feeling a bit like tv just cause you know what I mean?

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Sort of like an intensity.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

Yeah man, wicked intensity. It didn't seem like this huge love affair but Greg's quite interesting anyway. He's quite interesting guy so something that may seem strange in another situation, I'm like, oh, this is just Greg, this is my brother.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Greg's Kiwi mates also found Lesley quite buzzy.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

We were very quick to get wrapped up in Lesley because she was like the life of the party. She'd roll up with, you know, her Jagermeister and to be honest, back then I was 10 years ago, I was 24. So here's this chick who was like just paying for everything like she was always, I mean, can I talk about drugs? She was always supplying weed and Jagermeister.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

It's a quick way to a 24 year old tart. Weed and Jagermeister, oh, 100% right. Most people were like sweet as but for some others it was a bit.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

Much like for instance, if she said come over, we'll have a drink of wine, we'd go over there and have a really expensive bottle of red or something and I'd mention oh yeah, that's a really nice bottle. She'd turn up the next day with like a whole case of the stuff and be like, this is for you. Every time we caught up she was always showering us in gifts, like giving us literally gifts, paying for everything, free alcohol, this is amazing. But when it was every catch up I started to be like, this is weird, this is not how a normal friendship works.

[Julie (Mum)]

Don't put it near me.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

What needs to come near you? To record you.

[Julie (Mum)]

Dennis looking at me.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

A what? That's my mum, Julie describing my microphone. Mum's a Tall lady. She used to be self conscious as a teenager. One time she danced with her friend in the girls bathroom because she didn't think any of the boys would want to dance with a taller girl. But now she owns it. She's pretty sassy and sarcastic.

[Julie (Mum)]

Could you just put it sort of over there? Down there?

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Can you start by just. Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself?

[Julie (Mum)]

Hello. I'm the mother of three boys who I thought I would not survive their upbringing. I love the three of them to bits. The one we're going to speak of is our lovely Greg, who is a.

[David (Dad)]

Kind.

[Julie (Mum)]

Far seeing, intelligent, good looking young man. In that people used to even say he looked like Tom Cruise, so that must be a measure. But in that it seems there's been a bit of vulnerability.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

My brother is kind but I gotta say he doesn't look like Tom Cruise. I reckon Mum thought Leslie looked like a movie star too.

[Julie (Mum)]

She was rather lovely. She had this dark, vivacious surface skin and look to her personality, bubbly, very yahya American. You know how Americans have the accent where they go nyah nyah nyah nya.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

Ya nya ya ya ya.

[Julie (Mum)]

I know, I just know. So I thought, oh yes, that's just American. And we got on with it.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Mum ended up hanging out with Lesley like every day.

[Julie (Mum)]

Each day she would get up and make me take her somewhere, like, let's go. And I was happy to do it, for goodness sake.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

What was their kind of plan though? I mean, what were they going to be doing?

[Julie (Mum)]

She was going to buy a business in New Zealand of a hospitality nature. One day she'd been trawling through things up in the bedroom and she came down and she said, I found it, I've got it. She said, this is a sign, I have to buy this place.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

What was the sign?

[Julie (Mum)]

The sign was that she had a big dragonfly tattooed across her back.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

So the cafe is called the Dragonfly. She's got a dragonfly tattoo.

[Julie (Mum)]

It's a sign to be.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

The Dragonfly Cafe was in a small town called Makana, an hour's drive north of Auckland. Around Matakana, lush native bush and farms sit next to sandy white beaches. There's a farmer's market vibe. Sometimes ducks waddle around town from the river which is lit up by fairy lights at night. The Dragonfly was on the main road leading into Matakana. At the front, a gift shop sold scented candles and beach house knick knacks on the back patio. The cafe looked down a slope Towards a natural waterfall, all surrounded by native bush. If you looked back up towards the cafe, you'd see a house with a log cabin feel to it, with exposed wooden beams. This is where Greg and Leslie would live.

[Julie (Mum)]

It was lovely, super staff.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

And do you remember how much it was going to be worth?

[David (Dad)]

Over.

[Julie (Mum)]

Over a million because it had the house with it and the beautiful land and the business.

[David (Dad)]

Okay, ready to rock and roll.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

And finally, from our fam. This is my dad, David.

[David (Dad)]

I am a Kiwi fellow who has had lots of jobs, met lots of people. I feel fairly comfortable in myself. I have developed a fairly strong Christian faith and I think that's served me very well.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

My whole life dad has looked the same. He's got a round, warm face, incapable of showing anger. Square glasses, silver grey hair, just only on the sides. Maybe it's because I've been away from home for so long, but sometimes I hear dad like Murray, the manager from Flight of the Concords. Oh, you're like a cool looking pair of idiots. Dad was there to help Lesley get set up when she came to New Zealand.

[David (Dad)]

So she needed a lawyer in order to look at properties and do some conveyancing. And I thought, poor girl, she doesn't know anybody, she can have our lawyer. So I introduced her to our lawyer.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

This Auckland based lawyer had been acting for Mum and dad for 25 years. When my parents bought their house in 1982, he was there. Dad bought a business that hired out party equipment. He worked on that. It made sense to get him on the job for Lesley too, now that she was part of the family. With that sorted, Lesley went to New Zealand's state owned bank, creatively titled Kiwi bank and she asked for a loan. The conditions included Leslie proving to Kiwibank that she had a trust fund. She was able to show the bank that she had US$5 million in her trust fund and $5,000 coming to her each month for life. But Lesley had only just come to New Zealand and she was still on a tourist visa. Another condition of the loan was having a Kiwi guarantor. Dad had just sold his party hire company and retired, so it seemed natural for them to get involved.

[David (Dad)]

There were a lot of people that were sort of saying things, cautioning us, are you sure? That's a huge thing to do. And I was thinking, Lesley seems to be on top of all this. She has all this fantastic references from running restaurants over in America and in Hawaii. She talks the talk. She convinced our lawyer that it was a good thing to do.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

I Tried to talk to this lawyer, but he didn't want to be interviewed in a case that happened later. He said he never told Mum and Dad that it was a great venture. He said he doesn't give that kind of advice to his clients. But dad remembers things differently.

[David (Dad)]

He said to me, you don't have to do anything, David, because I would say she's a human dynamo. That's his words. She is a human dynamo. We're thinking every now and again, you gotta stick your neck out. You stick your neck out and it'll pay off. So we guaranteed a loan, a 100% loan to purchase one and a half million dollars worth of property and business. There was an awful lot on trust here on my part and our part, huge amount. We did stick our necks out.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Greg and Leslie moved into the house at the Dragonfly. Over the last few months of 2007. Greg wouldn't have much to do with the cafe. He had his own job, Leslie was in charge. But soon my brother Simon got roped in on the food side of the business.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

So I may have embellished the story, but I remember being just a few days before the cafe opened. She had a blue with the chef and then. So I was just like, the chef.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

He quit.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

Some French guy and he quit.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

When the cafe reopened, there was a lot of buzz around it. Things were going well. Leslie was making an impact on the chilled out Matakana community. Here was this California power business lady shaking things up. The local magazine did a write up.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

Now under its new owner, Leslie Mnookian, who has previously owned restaurants in Lake Tahoe in the US and in Hawaii. Dragonfly is getting better by the day.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Meanwhile, preparations were underway for a massive wedding. But it soon became clear that none of Lesley's trust fund friends from America were going to make it. She said none of them could hack the 13 hour flight to Auckland. So Kiwi girls that Lesley had known for only a matter of months started getting the call up to the bridal party, like Carla, who was back in London.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

I remember sitting at my desk in Hoxton and at my office and I remember thinking, fuck, this is so weird, and sort of saying to a few of the girls in the showroom, like, so I've just asked me to be a bridesmaid to this girl I barely know in New Zealand in January.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

One of the other bridesmaids, Alicia, hadn't known Lesley for long either.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

I was asked to be a bridesmaid, which was quite surprising. I think she said something about her cousin couldn't Come. So I think I was kind of filling in like she didn't really have any family here and yeah, I mean, I guess I was happy to do it because we were, you know, we were close at the time.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

After everything that went down, my mum stopped referring to it as the wedding. She renamed it. In our family it's now known as the Event. The event happened on a blue sky summer day just after Christmas in a small colonial era church with painted white arches and stiff wooden pews.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

And it just was really surreal. It was like I was kind of acting, I was acting in a sitcom or something like that was my role to arrive and then I was going to go walk down the aisle and it was so weird.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

The ceremony was pretty standard. A priest, those Bible readings from every church wedding ever. Love is patient, Love is kind. After that, the party started straight away in a hall next door door. I was living in London by this point and I had flown home especially for the wedding. I was happy to be the mc. I remember making a joke like, geez, I go away for a couple of months and I come back and Greg's got a cafe, a house and a waterfall. I can't find any recordings of that night. Pretty much everyone we know in New Zealand was there. More than 150 people came. There were even wedding crashes watching from the deck. But here's the weird thing. Almost all the guests were from Greg's side. The only guests that weren't already friends or family of Greg's were Lesley's parents, Betty and Andrew.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

There was two people. Yeah, no friends, no family. I think the weirdest thing, and I think the weirdest thing for everyone just about the event was the. The parent thing, her parents and just how. I think there was a lot of. They were just standoffish, they were just like. I don't know, it was just fucking weird. I don't remember really being able to talk to them at all. There was no really interaction.

[Julie (Mum)]

They were very quiet and you couldn't raise a lip of a smile. You couldn't get a word out of them. They looked.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

Very.

[Julie (Mum)]

She looked very pale and colourless.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

The best man, Nat, made a special effort with Lesley's parents.

[Greg (Brother)]

They were very, very hard to try and make them feel welcome.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

So I just remember at one point just walking away and thinking, oh well.

[Greg (Brother)]

I remember joking with Nat about the.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

Fact that potentially, you know, are Lesley's.

[Greg (Brother)]

Parents even her real parents or did.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

She just ring in a couple of actors?

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

They seemed a little bit stand in like.

[Julie (Mum)]

Cause they were sort Of a bit there but not there.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

We joked that they were hired actors because.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Yeah.

[David (Dad)]

Why?

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

I don't know. They just. Oh well because they definitely didn't fit the profile of like who you think her parents would be. And they were kind of weird and quiet and there wasn't like a lot of love and like vibing relationship between the two like you would expect from a parent and child.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

Like I didn't like honestly like to this day I have no idea if that's her parents. No idea. I wouldn't be surprised if that's not. I don't remember seeing any kind of love going on.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

I remember Betty and Andrew, they bought me a pair of Levi jeans as a gift. That was cool. But they didn't really talk to me either. I still don't know what they knew about what was going on or what their role was in all of this.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

I think they kind of knew that there was some, some fuckery involved, you know what I mean?

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

It wasn't long after the wedding that people started to notice some of that fuckery.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

I was up in Room your shops and I bumped into Leslie and she had just come out of the public library and she was showing me this document that she had sent over from the US because she was trying to get her driver's license in New Zealand but she had to submit like a driving record from the US and we were having a laugh because she had all these DUI and some like suspended licenses or something like a. She had like a few things and she was in the public library, no joke. She was twinking out these from her record that obviously she had asked for and been sent over from the US Twinking these out and then re photocopying them and then touching them up and re photocopying them until it looked legit.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

By the way, twink is one of those words that people laugh at us Kiwis about. It's whiteout, liquid eraser, Twink.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

And I just remember standing on the road with her so vividly. Just her showing me the document and her and I having a laugh about it. And I was thinking wow, like that I think was the first time I was like she's got some secrets, you know, like you're hiding some stuff.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

And up at the Dragonfly Cafe things were starting to go wrong.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

We ran out of water so we didn't have access to in the kitchen to water. And so Greg and Likewise were kind of running back and forward to the house trying to get like bottles of water, trying to get stuff to wash dishes. And there were just so many days like that where something was going wrong and there was just no fixing it. I don't think Leslie was around for much of that. I remember her coming in really strong at the beginning and then kind of not being around, and all us staff were like, what's happening?

[Greg (Brother)]

There was one moment where it was a bit of a watershed moment for me, and that's when the milk supplier for the cafe arrived and I sort of said, g', day, how are you? And he basically said that he had never been paid for milk. It wasn't his first attempt at getting money. I could tell that he was a bit worked up about it. And, you know, I thought, this is not right. And I recall talking to Lesley about it and she sort of, as she did with lots of things, I'll take care of it. Don't get involved. Leave it to me.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

The Dragonfly was becoming a total cluster. A bunch of people were saying they weren't getting paid.

[Greg (Brother)]

I became very frustrated that I couldn't access any information. I couldn't ever get to the bottom of anything. Leslie almost got angry at me for attempting to, you know, try and help and get more involved. The more it happened, the more angry she got at me, the more frustrated I got. And that became a real strain.

[David (Dad)]

I started to feel very uneasy and we needed to find out what was going on. We weren't able to find out a heck of a lot from the bank. We weren't actually owners of the business. We weren't signatories to anything. Even Greg wasn't able to find out a lot of stuff.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

But you were the guarantors. And, you know, you guys had put money on the line, but you. You had signed up to be the guarantors, but not signed up to be able to see anything. Isn't that weird?

[David (Dad)]

You could say it like that. But I did follow my lawyer's advice that she knows what she's doing. She's a human dynamo.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Lesley would spend most of the day locked in the house, which had become a sanctuary from the outside world and the questions people were starting to ask. A date was set for a meeting where an accountant was going to start combing through the books. But Lesley didn't show up. Greg knew he needed to do something, so he came up with a plan.

[Greg (Brother)]

If she was here, she would block us. Learning about what the reality was. I told her to go and see her parents and go over holiday, get out of the country.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

And you actually thought that would be an opportunity to look around properly.

[Greg (Brother)]

The only way.

[David (Dad)]

Yep.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

And what was, you know, if you don't mind me asking, like, what was the kind of relationship like at that point?

[Greg (Brother)]

Frosty, just completely untrusting on both sides.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

At pretty short notice, Leslie booked a flight to America to visit her family. So my mum and dad would have to step up and look after the cafe. As Greg drove her to Auckland airport, things were tense. There was a lot unsaid. But Greg wanted to work this whole mess out and get back to life with Lesley when she got back from the States.

[Greg (Brother)]

So we're parked, checked in, formalities are done. It's me and Lesley now walking upstairs to the actual departure gate where there's not a lot of love going on. There was probably a nervous but cold hug. Hope to see you again. Let's try and work this out. And she, right at the last moment, put it right out there that Greg, the snowball is about to hit you.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Next episode, the snowball hits.

[Julie (Mum)]

We cried. We just were destroyed.

[David (Dad)]

That was a fundamental wow moment for me. When you present that to a bank and they accept it.

[Greg (Brother)]

Adrenaline is my best friend.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

That's quite calculated. That's fucking out there.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Somebody has been wronged using my name and rightfully believes that the person who wronged them is me.

[Julie (Mum)]

I found it. He said your janitors should have found it.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

How often would you go in there and look?

[David (Dad)]

At least once a week, dad.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

It's so weird.

[David (Dad)]

It is weird. It is weird.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Snowball is hosted and produced by me, Ollie Wardes. Big ups to my brave brother Greg and my entire family for letting me tell this story. Unravel's totally stoic and awesome Supervising producer is Tim Roxburgh. Our super diligent audio producer is Emma Lancaster. Assisting with audio production is Shane Anderson who is also our whip smart fact checker Sound designed by the very creative left and right panning John Jacobs and Tim Jenkins. A big thanks to my prolific and legendary mates from flight facilities for the funky ass Unravel theme song. Additional music by the talented tunesmith Bryce Halliday. You can check out some behind the scenes stuff over at my Instagram lliewards O L L I E W A R D S Unravel is a product of ABC Audio Studios led by the ebullient, thoughtful and patient Kelly Reard. And Unravel's expert and excitable executive producer is Ian Walker.

[Advertiser/Indeed Representative]

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[Jake Halpern (Deep Cover Host)]

I'm Jake Halpern, host of Deep Cover. We're presenting a special series from Australia. It's all about a family who was conned by a charming American.

[Greg (Brother)]

When you marry someone, you feel like you really know them.

[David (Dad)]

I was just gobsmacked as to what's going on here.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

I just remember it being like, whoa.

[Julie (Mum)]

She had this dark, vivacious, and then, whoa, a surfer's skin. And look to her.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

And then after, like, two or three.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

Woes, it was so weird.

[Simon (Oldest Brother)]

It wasn't really a surprise. You're like, I wonder what the next woe's gonna be.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

How did this happen?

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

Why did you do this?

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Does the name Leslie Mnookian mean anything to you? Oh, you bet. Never forget her.

[Jake Halpern (Deep Cover Host)]

Listen to Deep Cover presents Snowball wherever you get your podcasts.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Okay, I'm running. She's walking just in front of you, bro.

[David (Dad)]

Where?

[Greg (Brother)]

In the middle, Walking just down the middle.

[Ollie Wards (Host/Investigator)]

Straight down the aisle. Okay. Yeah, I see her.

[Narrator/Ollie Wards]

This is an I Heart podcast.