- After moving to New York from Russia, Viktoria Nasyrova met beauty therapist Olga Tsvyk, aged 35
- The pair quickly became friends, and soon Viktoria was visiting Olga at her home for her appointments
- One day, Viktoria visited Olga with a cheesecake from a fancy bakery
- After indulging in a slice, Olga started to feel unwell and went to lie down
- The next day, she was discovered by her sister, close to death in her bedroom
- Police investigated and found Olga had eaten a cake poisoned with highly potent sedatives…
Viktoria Nasyrova and her friend Olga Tsvyk could have been sisters.
Both had long, dark hair, olive complexions, and took good care of themselves, with frequent manicures and eyelash appointments.
In fact, it was at an eyelash extension appointment that the two women first met in 2014, shortly after Viktoria, 38, had moved to New York from Russia, and booked in at 35-year-old Olga’s salon.
Although Olga was Ukrainian, both women were Russian-speaking and almost identical in appearance. The two of them quickly bonded.
Viktoria confided that her young son, who was still back in Russia, had a bone marrow disease, and she’d come to the Big Apple for a better life, to earn money for his treatment.
She’d begun working as a massage therapist but that had quickly turned into sex work, working as a dominatrix.
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Olga didn’t judge her. She knew how tough it could be to find well-paid work in a foreign country.
The women caught up during Viktoria’s frequent appointments. By 2016, Viktoria would go to Olga’s home for her manicures and eyelash touch-ups so they’d have more time to chat.
In August that year, Viktoria went to Olga’s home with a gift. She’d bought a cheesecake from an upmarket bakery for them to share while Olga did her eyelashes.
Viktoria tucked in first, enjoying two slices of the cake, before offering Olga a third, which she ate.
After about 20 minutes, Olga began to feel unwell and went to lie down.
It wasn’t until the next day she was discovered by her sister, close to death in her bedroom, with pills scattered around her body.
She was rushed to hospital where she made a full recovery, but doctors said she’d been dangerously close to a heart attack.
When Olga returned home, she realised her work permit, passport, some of her gold jewellery, and around $6300 in cash were missing.
The police were called and an unsettled Olga told them Viktoria had been the last guest in her home. She’d been gone when she came to her bedroom after eating the cheesecake.
Luckily, some crumbs were left in the container, so police tested it and found that it was poisoned with phenazepam, a highly potent sedative.
In addition, Viktoria’s DNA was indeed on the box.
Could her friend Viktoria have laced the cheesecake, then scattered the pills to make it look like an overdose, to steal her identity from her? With the women being close to identical, it made sense.
Viktoria Nasyrova was arrested in March 2017. A subsequent search of her home turned up Olga’s missing passport and working permit.
Nasyrova was charged with assault, attempted murder, theft, plus unlawful imprisonment.
There were many legal and pandemic-related delays before the trial could begin.
Finally, in January 2023, Viktoria’s dark past came to light. It turned out she’d fled Russia after being suspected of murdering her neighbour, Alla Alekseenko.
Russian authorities had issued a red alert to Interpol for Viktoria’s arrest, but she’d managed to flee the country by seducing a cop.
Another witness, a man who had met Viktoria on a dating app in 2016, said she’d drugged him on their date – and he’d woken up in the hospital three days later.
“I would spend hours crying myself to sleep, thinking about what happened to me,” the victim said.
Olga’s sister Iryna Kozachenko, 35, told the jury about finding her sister clinging to life.
Speaking through a Russian interpreter, she described finding her sister nearly passed out in the second-floor main bedroom of her home.
“She was feeling very bad and she just looked at me, she looked like a vegetable,” Iryna told jurors. “She was extremely tired. She could barely move her eyes. It looked like she was asleep.”
Viktoria Nasyrova, 47, was found guilty of all charges.
Ahead of the sentencing, her victim addressed the court.
“God gave me life when Viktoria Nasyrova tried to end my life,” Olga said.
“For her, it was an easy thing to try to take the life of another person.”
Olga told the judge that the ordeal had left her unable to sleep for months, she’d been terrified to go back to work, had become distrustful of people, and lived in constant fear that Nasyrova would come back to finish what she started”.
The prosecutor called her a “ruthless and conniving con artist”.
Nasyrova’s defence lawyer Jose Nieves asked the judge for leniency, stating that Nasyrova’s son had a “debilitating disease” and that her client wanted to see him.
“She hasn’t seen him for eight years,” Nieves said. “She hopes to see him before this illness ends his life.”
Nieves also asked the judge to consider Nasyrova’s “difficult” background, stating that she’d suffered mental illness that had gone untreated.
Judge Kenneth Holder called Nasyrova “an extremely dangerous woman” and said her scheme was “diabolical”.
He sentenced her to 21 years in prison.
Nasyrova yelled a profanity across the courtroom as the sentence was read out.
After 15 years of her supervised sentence are served, Nasyrova could be deported to Russia, which means she could still face a murder charge in relation to the violent death of her neighbour.
