Viktoriya Nasyrova

It takes a lot to surprise the seasoned police of the NYPD, but in 2016, a perplexing case leaves New York City detectives and the city itself in utter shock. The media coverage for this case was off the charts. People were obsessed. As police delven, the evidence quickly leads to more mysteries than answers. The last thing she remembered was someone brought her pieces of cheesecake. And investigators uncover a disturbing pattern. She prepared fish and a tuk-tuk bites that's all I remember. The talk screen comes back as negative. It doesn't pick up on any talk soon. But a new challenge surfaces when investigators find their suspect. A notorious international seductress who's been targeting victims in at least two countries. It wasn't just a poisoning. It was a stolen identity. There was a dominatrix aspect. You'd found out that the person who committed this crime was wanted for murder. At that point, she got some fake documents and tried to blackmail her into working for this. To locate their killer, multiple investigations unite. She was trying to change her identity to hide who she actually was. She said the Russian government tried to blackmail her. She needed to do all of this so that she could never go back to Russia. New York City is home to immigrants from every corner of the world, including several large Russian-speaking communities. Russian community in Brooklyn, I mean, it's very large and very varied. A majority of the people that live there just regular people, you know, they work. They do their best. Have a good life, you know, live the American dream. Automatically, there's this like, you know, kinship, I guess, because you're from the same place. On August 29, 2016, one of these neighborhoods becomes the scene of an unusual emergency. 911 gets a panicked phone call if there is an unconscious woman at her home in Queens. On the line, a panicked landlord explains he found his tenant 35-year-old Olga Svikk in a dire condition. First responders rush to the scene, assess the scene, everything looks a little off. She's found in her bedroom in really rough shape. She's not responsive, she's really not moving, she's pale white. The landlord tells paramedics after not seeing Olga for two days, he checked on her and found her completely out of it. This is quite bad. Her landlord sees pills all over the room. The heat was up extensively. They look around and they draw the only conclusion that this is probably a trouble woman, she killed herself. Not a lot of people who commit suicide through pills throw the pills all over the room. It makes sense. The fact that the heat was on extremely high. It was some 80s, some plus degrees in the room, that was odd, too. You have this beautiful woman just basically comatose in lingerie. It almost looks like if you picture what a soap opera scene would look like, if you staged a dramatic end of life scene. But responders immediately rush Olga to the hospital. Thankfully, emergency room doctors are able to stabilize her. Olga was extremely lucky that she had somebody come down and check on her. She was extremely close to death and could have been dead within the next hour. Olga displays weakness, fatigue, memory loss, disorientation, so they take a physical exam, try to figure out what's going on. One of the diagnostic tools that they use in the hospital is a urine screen. The test tries to figure out whether or not there's an amount of toxin within a particular range. The test should reveal what kind of pills are in Olga's system. But the results are unexpected. Her toxin comes back as negative. It doesn't pick up on any toxin. When nothing was raised in these test results, that was really curious. When medical staff approach Olga with questions about what happened, she doesn't seem to remember anything. But in cysts, this was no suicide attempt. So, the doctors at the hospital, when they do their review, they're thinking at the same time, "What's going on? We don't know anything about Olga. Is her story true? Does it make sense?" The big question at that point is why, the more, and where's my evidence? Olga, take one mark. My first name Olga, and last name is Slick, T-S-V-Y-K. I was born in Ukraine. In Venitsa, I used to work as a travel agent, so I used to travel a lot. And in my country, in 2014, we have a war starting. I decided to just change something in my life. And I decided to try myself in the United States. Olga sought out friends in New York City who helped her find a residence. Olga was living in a single family home that was owned by a gentleman who lived on the ground floor. He lived on the first floor, he was old, like 86 years old, and he was like my family. I called him my American uncle. She lived in a sweet little neighborhood of Queens, got along and knew her neighbors really well. She also found a new career in cosmology. I was excited to try something new. I started working as a last technician. It was like my hobby before, but here it was my main job. It was a good situation for me to work around people who talk English and with the Russian community people, so yeah, it was really good. She really made a life for herself out here, and by all accounts seemed that things were going really well. Now, just two years into her American dream, Olga has narrowly survived a harrowing near death experience. Medical staff are trying to determine what happened to her, but with Olga still having no memory of it, doctors find themselves at a dead end. Your analysis and the blood tests come up empty. They don't have a lead to really go on. What the hospital has is someone with an altered mental status, who displays weakness, fatigue, memory loss, disorientation, but clinically and diagnostically, it doesn't show that anything has happened to them. So they provided Olga with fluids, they monitored her, and when her condition improved to a point, she was well enough to be discharged, but she's not well yet. She can't really talk that well, she can't really walk that well, she's certainly not herself. Her friend called Olga's sister Irina, and notifies Irina that Olga's really not doing well. When my sister got called from my friend, and she realized that something wrong with me, something not good, and she cashed the first flight to New York. When Irina arrives on August 30th and sees Olga's apartment, she's left with a sinking feeling. She finds a pilser around me, around my bed. Irina looks in the few areas that she knows Olga keeps her valuables. The passport, the working papers, money, jewelry. All these things are missing from her house, and she knows it's almost immediately. Irina goes to the precinct and says to the police, "Somebody stole in my sister's property." So Irina is reporting a larceny. Police open an investigation and visit Olga's house the next day. Upon arrival, Olga's sister Irina fills officers in on Olga's strange illness, stating that her sister's missing property is just the beginning of her concerns. Her sister Irina tells her her fells all over the road. That was odd. They think I took a pulse and tried to poison myself, but she knew me. She knows that she knew that I'm never going to do that. Irina leads officers to speak with Olga, whose gradual recovery has helped her regain foggy memories. I remember first when my sister came into my room with the detectives. They asked me the question and some of them I don't remember. When Irina started talking to us, we were getting more and more information. Before she got really ill, the last thing she remembered was someone coming over, a client of hers, Victoria. She came to me every two, three weeks. She come all the way from the Brooklyn to Queens. Victoria tells Olga that she's going to Mexico in a few days or in a day, and she absolutely needs to have her lashes fixed. She knew that she wasn't working that day. Please, please, please, please. Could she come to her apartment to get this fix? Olga says yes. It was Sunday. It was my day off. Usually I don't take my client at home. I didn't listen to my intuition and they say, "Okay, just come and I'm going to do it through." She was the last person who saw her before she got really ill. At this point, the police are starting to say, "We need to find Victoria." Coming up, Olga continues to recount her brush with death. She opened the box in front of me like this. I eat just for politeness. This is particularly criminal. She's in the wind. As police struggle to piece together what happened, more victims surface. He didn't even exactly know how he ended up in the hospital. I never thought about she was going to struggle. We put that out to all the squads so they know and look out for this person. With Olga's memories starting to surface, detectives have her walk them through what happened. Starting with more details about the last person she remembers seeing, her client Victoria. She was my client. I believe more than 60 months. She was very open. She tells me that she had beautiful own in Moscow. She represents herself like she's successful businesswoman. Victoria had become such a regular that when she asked for an emergency touch-up, Olga agreed. As a thank you for doing this solid favor on your day off, Victoria brought her pieces of cheesecake from a very famous bakery in Brooklyn. Olga says Victoria's behavior seemed off. They come up to my room and you say you can't understand how it tasted this cake. She opened the box in front of me like this, you know, and she picked one and she ate. It was like very fast and she picked another one. And she left me just one piece and I say okay, okay, maybe she's hungry. I don't know. I eat not because I was hungry or something, you know, just for politeness. Within a few minutes, Olga began to feel sick. I just tried to find my bed to lie down and I tell her, oh my god, Victoria, something wrong, you know. She started feeling weird, musy, sick to her stomach, nauseous, she threw up off the side of the bed. She tells me, oh, don't worry, I'm going to clean everything. I just remember that she came to my room with the paper towels and it's it. When Olga's sister Irina told her she'd been robbed, she suspected Victoria was the culprit. I don't have my passport, I don't have my work authorization, no, my money, she left in my wallet just $17, that's it. I realized she even not took my perfumes, you know. She also believes Victoria drugged her as an attempt to cover her tracks. Victoria, she is preparing to look me like suicide, you know, like I poison myself. It was thought that this was the stage crime scene because she's very adamant in the fact that she was robbed. Investigators discover one piece of evidence they hope could validate Olga's story. Inside of the trash can at Olga's house detectives find a container with the cheesecake crumbs still in it. Immediately this container is bagged and tagged as evidence and it is sent in for testing. We have the wrapper, we have part of the cheesecake, we test it and we get nothing. That means there is no known banned control substance that we can pick up in this box. There was also a DNA test that was run on it and the DNA came back initially as belonging to a female who's not Olga's Vic. Detectives assume the DNA belongs to Victoria but without a last name police can't even confirm Victoria is her real name. The issue was Victoria and Olga always met at the salon. This was the first time they met outside at her apartment and Olga had no idea where she lived and cops couldn't find an address. We have a phone number for her but she doesn't answer it. This person doesn't seem to exist. That's not a lot to go on so at that point it's simply being investigated as a larceny and it's an open larceny. I tell them everything would happen but I feel like they just don't believe me, they don't trust. I think maybe they think I do drugs, maybe I overdose something you know. Olga and her sister try to put the ordeal behind them. But a few days later Olga receives a message from an encrypted phone number. I showed the text message. It was Victoria. She asked me, "Olga, where are you? I can reach you. What happened? Is that?" And I didn't ask her. Moments later, her phone rang. She called me and I pick up the phone and she asked me, "Olga, what happened to you? I can reach you." I say, "Victoria, you were stalling a lot of stuff from me. You were poison me and you know what her answer was." She tells me, "Okay, so go to police." To Olga, the message is clear. I was scared because I feel like she wants to get down what she doesn't fit. They realize that she really wants to kill me. It's been one week since Olga's thick was released from the hospital due to a mysterious illness. She believes one of her clients, Victoria, is the one responsible. After confronting her possible attacker over the phone, Olga comes away shake-in. So I was always like scared, always look around. You know, my friends, they always drive me to my house and they always wait for me to watch how I get in door to the house. With the NYPD unable to pursue her case, Olga tries her best to move forward. Olga stayed out of work for about a week or two weeks, maybe more, and she ultimately returned to work sometime in mid to late September. When I started working, it was very difficult for me. I started to take clients like one per day, you know. One of her regular customers asked her why she had been out. And when Olga said I was sick and I didn't feel well, the customer asked them all the questions. They say, "I just don't want to talk about it." I thought, "I just, I, I got sick, you know." And they say, "Somebody's poisoned me." Her customer's reaction to the news is unexpected. This customer said to Olga, "I can't believe you're saying this to me because I happen to know somebody who over the summer went out on date with a woman, had dinner with her, eight food became very sick and went to the hospital." She tells me, "Maybe this is the same person. After work, she text me. Olga, can I give you a number? His name is Ruben." Shortly thereafter, Olga calls Ruben. Olga relays her story to Ruben, exactly how it happened, and says to him, "The person that poisoned me was this woman Victoria." Ruben says to her, "I don't know any Victoria. The person that poisoned me was a woman named Anna." He sent me her picture, and it's her. Then I was like, "Shut up." So at that point, they both think that they were poisoned by the same person. Olga agrees to meet with Ruben to hear his story in detail. I'm here 43 years, came here 1980 from Russia, and I lived in Russian neighborhood all this time. Ruben says he met the woman he calls Anna on a Russian dating app two months ago in June 2016. I was single at that time. I was dating, checking girls out, and I met her, and she gave me her number. She said she came from Russia, like, not long ago. I started talking to her, and she was very smart woman. She said, "Do you like to eat? I like to cook." I was like, "Of course," she said, "Sandy, I'll buy some food, prepare to cook, and I was like, "Sure, why not?" The date was to be held at her apartment in Sheepshead Bay in Brooklyn. "Sandy, I went on board the flowers, I bought a wine, and I went to her home." Upon arrival, Ruben says he was surprised to find her apartment empty. I was like, "Where is the furniture?" Carpet was rolled up. I was shocked, like, and she said she had a roommate, she just moved out. I was like, "Okay," and she said, "Come, come, the table's ready." It was a mini table, and I had my own wine. She prepared fish, I took two bites, I drank a wine, and that's all I remember. I never thought about she was going to drag me. Ruben says two days later, he woke up in a hospital room. He's there for about a week, a test run, but they can't really figure out what's wrong with him. The medical record lists a number of his symptoms, like memory loss, fatigue, weakness, these type of things. The medical records between Ruben and Olga were almost identical. The doctors, they took my blood and they're saying, "He's clean, he's clean." I don't understand. I just don't get it. They give him fluids, they give him some food, they monitor him, and find that he's okay to be discharged. But even at the discharge point, they don't know what happened to this person. I remember Ruben called me and told me this story. He really got sick here. He almost got in coma. I got sick. Somebody used poison me. He got poisoned too. Maybe this is the same person. Ruben learned he was taken to the hospital by his sister. She said a woman brought him to the dry cleaning store he owned and claimed he'd passed out on a date. When she brought me back to my store, she was saying that he could try and get decent death. She gave me my phone, but no money, of course. She took my watch. It's a hundred something dollars watch. When I got my phone back, she erased everything. She erased all the text we did. All my phone was clear. For good measure, when she dropped him off, Anna allegedly swiped 500 bucks from the cash register. The store's surveillance cameras caught the whole thing on tape. His business had footage of Anna. In his office, going through personal things, going through drawers and things like that. Ruben had no memory of this whatsoever. I saw me on the camera, but I don't remember nothing. It was weird. Like Olga, Ruben spent the next two days feeling disoriented. When he recovered, he found out Anna had stolen more than he realized. His American Express charge card has something like $2,600 worth of new charges that he has no idea where they came from. After two weeks recovering from the shock of it all, Ruben decided to take action and report the crime to Brooklyn Police. He told me that he went to the police precinct and they think she was where he's a girlfriend and they broke up. I left. I left. I was like, "You know what? They don't want to take me." Information is okay. I tried to do my own investigation because I was mad that she got me. And then I thought about it and I was like, "You know what? I'm alive. It's okay." And I let it go. Till Olga. Olga and Ruben feel the similarities are too strong to deny. And they hope the NYPD agrees. We went together to the police precinct and they realized that it was really serious. Two victims talked about it, met in this small community and made this happen. Really interesting. Now you have a connection you didn't have before. Coming up. Investigators discover evidence of a crime spree. We start connecting different cases from different boroughs. We realize that we had numerous victims. And they uncover a suspect on the run. She was a wanted fugitive in Russia. She got hitchers in the car with her mother's body slumped over next to her in the passenger seat. She is wanted for killing someone halfway across the world. September 2016, after Olga Svik and Ruben Borokov present their stories to the NYPD, both cases are revived. We don't know any real pedigree information for this woman. Victoria, don't know where she works, don't know where she lives. She used all these different names and we have an MO, which is unusual. That poisoning thing, that's really odd and also within the Russian community. So now we have possibly a Russian person committing these crimes. Detectives also find it unusual that two nearly identical cases took place in different areas of society. city. It's a rare that we get something in a different barrel across the city. It's rare, but it's our job to be able to make those connections where we can. When something jumps out like a poisoning, we put that out to other squads so they know we don't look out for this person. Investigators quickly discover several more crimes with similar MOs. We start looking at all like grand loss and ease, connecting different cases from different boroughs, and we start making what we call a pattern. We realized that we had numerous victims from other areas. There was two cases, both of them located in Coney Island, both in the Ocean Parkway area. Two Russian individuals who both go home with a dark-haired female. In both cases the victims are male and they remember blacking out after eating or drinking. One of the individuals met her on a dating site and arranged to go on a date with her to a coffee shop. He ordered coffee she had wine. Within 15 or 20 minutes started to feel very very sick. On the ride back, he's actually saying to her in the car, "I'm not feeling well." She says to him, "Don't worry, let's pull over. I'll drive." They go back to his place. It's at her about that point where his memory completely cuts out. The following morning he wakes up in his bed and cash and jewelry is missing from his house. The victim's stories are eerily similar. Except one victim says the woman was named Mara. The other calls her Rachel. Because they're communicating on these dating apps, there's really no information other than that in terms of tracking back this person. She may or may not have been using a fake name. No phone number, no address, no other kind of petty re-information. Whatever the woman's real name is, the men say her profile advertised more than just dating. One of the things that she offered was to come and perform for them sort of BDSM activities that they wanted done. These men didn't want anybody to know about, you know, they weren't open about their BDSM preferences or whatever. Detectives know that clandestine nature of these trists could be stopping more victims from reporting. Maybe they won't come forward because of obvious reasons, embarrassment and things have been changed. So we don't know exactly how many victims they are. Luckily, the man who identified the suspect as Mara is able to give police the address of the apartment she took him to. He said he went to use the bathroom and when he came out of the restroom, he realized that his car keys and wallet were messing and so is Mara. His vehicle was also removed from the location. When detectives contact the owner of the apartment, she claims a friend asked her to let a woman stay there for a few days. She didn't know the individual but did provide us at that time with a cell phone number. We did computer checks with that number. The computer check provides detectives with a full name and possible lead. Victoria Masirova. Investigators learn she is a 41-year-old Russian woman in the United States on a visa. There was a prior incident that occurred in Manhattan where she was arrested for allegedly stealing. The Pettit Lawsonee is a minor crime. You get a desk appearance ticket. You get fingerprinted. If there's no warrants, local warrants for you, you will get released on on a summits. Detectives run her name through their database and find that it is also associated with an international record. After running the name in our databases, they realized there is an interpol warrant for her out of Russia and they provided us with a photo which was placed into a photo array. The local victims who are willing to talk confirm Victoria Masirova is the woman investigators are looking for. At this point we found out that the person who committed this crime in New York City was a wanted fugitive, was a wanted for murder in Russia involving a woman in Ala-Alexinko. The Russian government contacts Interpol which is a global law enforcement agency. Interpol is issues what is known as a red notice which is essentially a worldwide wanted flyer of the highest category. Now we have a whole different case. We have an international killer. We activated what is called an investigation card. It's almost like a warrant. It's the police department comes in contact with her. She be detained and held for the investigation. While detectives are on the hunt for Victoria Masirova, the stakes rise when they learn she's already wanted in her home country of Russia for the 2014 murder of Ala-Alexinko. Olga's case has been connected to Victoria and now it's wrapped up in this international fugitive who is wanted for killing someone halfway across the world. Not only is Victoria wanted for murder but the victim's daughter Nadia Ford has been desperately searching for Victoria for two years. In 2017 unaware of Victoria's more recent attacks Nadia seeks help from a private investigator. Nadia Ford is originally from Krasnodar, Russia born and raised there. I believe some time in 2010 or 2011 she moved to the United States. She maintained a really good relationship with her mom which the woman named Ala-Alexinko. Nadia said that Victoria killed her mother. When she was convinced Nadia was very instrumental in pushing the Russian authorities to investigate. The Russian government has been unable to gain traction on the case so Nadia hired New York private investigator, Hermann Weisberg. Nadia was introduced to me by a common friend. She was crying uncontrollably. I felt very bad for her. She explained that her mother was a victim of a homicide in Russia. Nadia tells Weisberg the trouble began in 2013 when her mother, Ala, was befriended by a much younger woman living next door in Krasnodar, Russia. The new neighbor that it moved in turned out to be Victoria Nasirov. As soon as the friendship had begun I think Nadia was a little suspect of it. Ala was older seemingly from a blue collar family, humble. Sort of like some of these grandma, right? Victoria on the other hand was always decked out in for codes and wore a lot of makeup and jewelry. She had much more of a luxurious outlook. Sometimes loneliness, right, is the type of thing that can motivate somebody to make an unusual friend. And I think that part of the reason why Victoria was successful in gaining Ala's trust is because Ala lived alone. And Victoria was right there. She was able to put up a front that Ala was very receptive to. And because she was a good-hearted lady and giving type of personality, a trusting type of personality, she decided to make this friendship work. So sometime in 2013 Nadia visits and gets to meet Victoria. They spend time together, they go out, they form a little bit of a bond. Victoria later tells Nadia, "Oh, I'm thinking about coming to New York." At some point in 2014, the following year, Ala says to her, "Well, you know, if you're gonna go, could you give some things to Nadia?" Personal items like clothing and things like that. So then time is passing, time is passing, time is passing, and Victoria is not going back to New York. And she still is holding on to those things. Ala is now chatting with Nadia. If she's not gonna go to New York, she might as well give me the stuff back. Alla had actually hinted to Nadia that I'm gonna confront Victoria about this because this is strange. Nadia tells Weisberg that's the last conversation she ever had with her mother. - On October 4th or 5th of 2014, Alla goes radio silent. - Nadia Ford was very much in touch with her mom, daily basis, regular routine phone calls, and they didn't go by where they didn't communicate. - An hour goes by, two hours go by, a full day goes by, and Nadia still can't get in contact with her mom. It was pretty strange to her. - Nadia actually calls Victoria as well. She has her number. Victoria says, "On, I've been seeing you." She might have left with some friends. Maybe that's where she should turn her phone off. Nadia doesn't bite. - Nadia decides to look into the phone history of her mom's cell phone because she was the one that set up the phone for her to begin with. So she logs on online and is able to look at the call history on that phone. She recognizes the final phone number that had had any contact with her mom to be the phone number of Victoria and Serova. This raises a alarm bells because Victoria didn't say anything to her about calling her or contacting her over the phone. - She made arrangements to get on a plane and head to Russia about as fast as anybody would have. And immediately she knows something's wrong as soon as she gets to her mom's apartment. - The police has been ransacked. There are a lot of things missing. Documents for her codes perfumes. - Nadia discovered something else was missing. The large amount of money her mother kept hitting in the apartment. - Just before her disappearance, Ala with Nadia's help had sold a piece of property in Russia and had gotten a nice sum for it. Somewhere probably around $50,000. She realizes that cash is missing. Their discovery confirms to her that something really is seriously going on. - Immediately Nadia contacts Russian authorities to look into her mother's disappearance. - In Nadia's mind, her mom is a hostage. - She's been kidnapped, she's been taken somewhere. - First case scenario, she's dead. - Nadia asked the police if they could essentially set up like a sting operation. They provide some undercover personnel and they arrange to follow Nadia to the apartment where she's going to confront Victoria. (upbeat music) - When Nadia Ford meets with private investigator Herman Weisberg in 2016, she details her investigations from the last year and a half. Nadia tells Herman that quickly following her mother's disappearance in October of 2014, she worked with Russian authorities to set up a sting operation to apprehend Victoria Nassirova. - Nadia meets with Victoria outside of the apartment building, seemingly it's just the two of them. At least however, our onsite can't be seen though. Nadia grabs her pretty aggressively, squeezes her and says, where's my mom? I know there's something going off of my mom. Victoria cannex sort of breaks away from the hold and starts streaming. Your mom is fine, your mom is fine. - At this point, the police are starting to come out of their hiding place. Victoria does a 180 and books it, runs into the building to get away from Nadia and the police. They apprehend her and they bring her back to the precinct. - Russian police is so speaking with her and of course she knows I don't know what you're talking about. She does this whole thing. So at that point, they do a lot of detectives. I mean, and she fails invisibly. - Unfortunately, with no concrete evidence tying Victoria to the robbery or Nadia's missing mother, they had to let her go. - Wait, they don't have enough. You have to let them go. That happens even over here. So you don't have enough, but you still work the case. - While the case remains open for authorities, Nadia decides she would continue investigating on her own. - Nadia stays in Russia. She is like a dog with a bone and she's not going to give up until she finds out what's going on with her mom. - Nadia reasoned that if Victoria did kill her mother, Aala, she must have moved her body. - She was able to go to traffic cameras and kind of plot the course of Victoria leaving her apartment, which is astounding police work for somebody that doesn't do this for a living. (dramatic music) - Nadia reviewed footage from the day Aala disappeared and found blurry video of a car leaving her mother's home. - She got pictures of Victoria driving with driving south in the car with her mother's body slumped over next to her in the passenger seat. - She takes that to the police. They find out the plate. - The car was registered to Victoria. - The authorities track the GPS signal from Victoria Nasserova's cell phone at or about the time of Aala's disappearance. And what they find is that essentially her phone tracked the particular path that day going from one city to another within Russia. She sort of does like a loop where she goes to this area just outside Armibir is there for a while and then the leaves. - In April of 2015, seven months after Aala goes missing, investigators follow Victoria's trail of digital breadcrumbs and make a devastating discovery. - The Russian authorities, they ask themselves, why would she take this pit stop and sort of like this neck of the woods for this period of time on that particular day? So they're able to zone in on it. They get cadaver dogs. And after searching for an extensive period of time, they're able to find burnt remains of a human body. - They find the remains of a body. They were so far gone that they could only be identified through dental records. And that is how they realized that they had a murder on their hands and that it was the murder of Aala, Alesenko. - Their body was in page shape physically, but we don't know what happened to Aala. - The evidence gave Russian police everything they needed to charge Victoria with murder, but there was another problem. - The Victoria, Naserova is nowhere to be found in the city that she was living or anywhere in Russia. Victoria had a relationship apparently with somebody high up in the police department and she was getting information. So she had escaped Russia. - At that point, as we say in the business, she's in the wind. She flies out of the country. - The red notice was issued in July of 2015. This is about 10 months after Aala's disappearance. - With the search for her mother having concluded in the worst possible outcome, Nadia returns to New York. However, Nadia says the mystery seems to have followed her home. Nadia tells Weisberg she has reason to believe Victoria escaped to the United States and is now hiding in New York. - Nadia heard from some of her acquaintances in Brooklyn that Victoria was in the area. She was also directed to find a Facebook account which was a variation of Victoria's first and last name. It was kind of hyphenated, V-na, V-I-N-A, which a lot of people at that time were doing with Facebook accounts to not use their full name. - Nadia fortuitously comes across a photo of the person she knows to be Victoria Naserova. And it's tagged at a location in Brooklyn. So now Nadia is afraid because in her mind, perhaps Victoria is in New York because she wants to do something to Nadia. Nadia is in a difficult predicament. She can't go to the NYPD and say, there's this woman who's here in New York who I think did something to my mom in Russia. So Nadia hires Herman and asks him to look into this person. The more she talked, the more I felt. If the NYPD, if Interpol, if Russia, if nobody can catch this woman, I don't know why I'm sitting in this conference table, frankly, but I should help her by any means necessary. - Coming up, the search for Victoria heats up. - I have a tendency to look at. What they're not showing me, I noticed that there was pretty unique stitching in the vehicle that she was in. And evidence continues to mount. I sent out my surveillance teams, I had them all split up. He told us, "Look, take them all, I don't want any of her stuff yet." It came across all this VIX Ukrainian passport. In March 2016, the NYPD continues its investigation into Victoria Nasirova. A Russian criminal, they believe poisoned Olga Savik and several men across the city. Meanwhile, private investigator Herman Weisberg begins one of his own. I decided to just take it on and I became kind of obsessed with it because of how bad I felt for her. We felt for Ms. Ward. Weisberg starts to piece together as much as he can as a private investigator to find Victoria. He has obviously some ability to research databases, so he knows that there's a red notice for her. He then tries to look into her footprint, her online footprint. There wasn't much there except for a Facebook account. But on Facebook, you know, it's very interesting to me that people are showing off. So when I look at anybody's Facebook page, I have a tendency to look at what they're not showing me. So I look past it and I look into the backgrounds or I look at the other people in the shot. I noticed Victoria liked wearing those merit aviators sunglasses. And I love that because I like looking in the reflection from the little things that Victoria didn't mean to put out there. He found one picture of her selfie and there was a reflection in her aviators of a car. So he started to take a close look at the car. I noticed that there was pretty unique stitching in the vehicle that she took the selfie in. Also, the clock on the dashboard was a very unique shape. I had some confidence that the car would still be connected to her. Weisberg knows that in a city, the size of New York, finding a single car can be like finding a needle in a haystack. He begins with zeroing in on the specific make and model. And I chose to walk around a parking lot that had, I don't know, thousands of vehicles. Before the end of the first day, Herman's determination pays off. He spots a vehicle that matches the interior reflected in Victoria's sunglasses. When I stumbled upon what turned out to be a Chrysler 300, I looked at it for about 20 minutes with my mouth open saying, "Holy." I actually just came across this car because I had given up a hundred times in my mind. The car doesn't belong to Victoria, but at least now, Weisberg knows what he's looking for. I still had to locate the vehicle in Brooklyn, but I was hoping that there were only a few in the areas that I had triangulated. On Victoria's Facebook page, she had done what's called liking different establishments, different businesses. There was a Mexican restaurant, there was a pizza place, maybe a nail or a hair salon, and they were all in close proximity to one another. I sent out my surveillance teams, had them all split up. Luckily for me, a Chrysler 300 with that interior package was relatively rare. Within six hours, my surveillance team found Victoria and her then boyfriend going out shopping and using that vehicle. We watched Victoria and Assy Rover and her boyfriend going to pick up a flat screen TV that they both had to carry back to their apartment building. It was quite obvious, they were use of keys to get entry, that's where they both lived. It definitely gave me a lot of confidence that we were on the right people, at the right place. It flashed through my brain. Like, this is the craziest thing ever. I don't know how I mean my team just did this, but there it is. Boom, done. I mean, I got her. Now, private investigator Herman Weisberg and his team need the NYPD to finish the job and apprehend Victoria. In the midst of their own investigation, detectives receive Weisberg's fortuitous tip. I got a phone call from a private investigator. He stated to me that he was hired by a family in Russia to attempt to locate Victoria. And he believed that he knew the location of her. Detectives let Weisberg know they've been searching for Victoria for seven months, in response to a series of robberies and the attempted murder of Olga's fake. I wasn't even aware of that time of what it transpired with Olga. I mean, I had my hunches about her from the beginning. That she's been up to no good for a long time here. I guess I was right about her. She don't care about anything but herself. On March 16, 2016, the NYPD and private investigator Herman Weisberg combined forces to zero in on Victoria Nassirova and make an arrest. Within 48 hours, I was meeting them in front of that location in Brooklyn where she had resided. She was living with someone named Vladimir. She was a boyfriend at the time. They went up to her boyfriend's apartment. Extivictoria was there, which he replied yes. They Xvictoria to step out, and they handcuffed her and brought her to the 60th prison. After a seven-month-long manhunt, Victoria is finally in custody. I asked her if she knew why she was apprehended and she denied everything of she had no idea what was going on. I saw Victoria get put in handcuffs and walked out the front door. I already had not just phone number ready to call her. I said we got her. Her reaction was like music when you hear something like that. When you know you could hear the joy in her voice. Now the challenge for investigators is to connect her to the crimes she suspected of committing. So the very first thing that the New York Police Department had to do is figure out was the person responsible for some or all of their open investigations. They arranged with each detective who's handling each of the open investigations to conduct a lineup. We brought all the victims to the prison. They were able to view each lineup separately and they don't get to speak with each other. Please ask me if I see Victoria and Asura in the tomb and I say yeah, I see her. Then they call me to Brooklyn to identify her. I went there and I saw her. Victoria was identified in all these separate cases that we had at that time. And then she was charged for grand loss and he bore three individuals. You know I was in shop and in the same time I feel it really. After notifying Interpol of Victoria's arrest, detectives begin building a case strong enough to convict her. After the arrest of Victoria, we went back to Victoria's boyfriend's house and we asked for consent to search his apartment. He was very shocked and almost depressed. He said they were having a little trouble and that she had moved out and was just recently moved back into the apartment in March. Victoria's boyfriend Vladimir says the reason for their breakup was his dog, Joey. Joey had died of very mysterious circumstances just weeks prior. Victoria during the course of her relationship with Vladimir made it known that she didn't really like the dog. In part because Vladimir was so close with this dog, everywhere that Vladimir went the dog went. One morning he woke up and the dog was no longer with him. There was talk about her poisoning her boyfriend's dog. "It's not a far stretch for me to think of what happened." When investigators tell Vladimir about the people Victoria allegedly poisoned, he agrees to help. Vladimir gave the police the permission for them to search some personal bags that she hadn't had in his home. She had just moved back into his apartment. It was so recent that her bags were still packed. He told us, "Look, take them all. I don't want any of her stuff here." Victoria's luggage provides them with a treasure trove of evidence. "As we're going bag-by-bag, we found Olga's jewelry that Olga described that was removed from her during her crime." They also came across Olga's Vick's employment authorization card, entering Ukrainian passport. Tucked inside Olga's passport, officers find a recent photo of Victoria and they're struck by how similar the two women look. "They're not 100 percent twins, but they can be mistaken for each other. I believe she was trying to change her identity to be Olga. The hide, who she actually was, maybe because of the interpol war." Prisons in Russia are pretty notorious for being grim and horrific places to serve out your time, and she did not want to face the murder charge for Ala Alessanko's death. But detectives know that to get away with it, Victoria needed Olga out of the picture, permanently. "You can't steal somebody's passport because they're going to go and report the passport stolen, and Victoria is smart enough to know that. It's my belief that Victoria used the poison cheesecake to make it look like it was a suicide. She staged the scene with other pills laying around. She staged the scene by changing Olga's clothing into lingerie, so if the police or anybody had found her dead, they would have immediately thought suicide." "It's the perfect setup. We have Olga, who's in her own home. No one was watching." That's how brilliant Victoria and Serova was and that she thought of almost every single detail to make this the perfect crime. What she didn't think about was the likelihood that Olga would survive. Coming up, an international killer becomes a New York tabloid star. You don't get a case like this every day. "She's a pathological liar, you know." And the story she tells is stranger than fiction. She told me herself. She would meet men on BDSM websites. After her arrest, Victoria Nassirova is held without bail in Reikers Island. She refuses to speak to investigators about her alleged crimes, but seems more than willing to tell her story to reporters. People were obsessed, particularly in New York, because you had all of these added elements. She was from another country. She was also beautiful. Over the next few months, Victoria gives the media all the headlines they could ask for. I met her several times at Reikers. Victoria is very charismatic, very talkative. No, she told me she didn't do anything. She said she's been framed, she's innocent. Part of the allure comes from the tale Victoria spins about her past. She comes from southern Russia. She came of age in the 90s. The collapse of the Soviet Union out in the South, it was hellish, hellish life. People had nothing. People didn't have food. You go to the store and there's nothing there. You just survive. Victoria's stories include her being forced to join a Russian crime syndicate in her 30s. She told me that she was doing off the books cosmetology work. She couldn't get a mortgage, so she got some fake documents. At that point, the Russian government came and tried to blackmail her into working for them. She said what she would do is she would go and get incriminating information against somebody and then she would help the Russian police like blackmail people for money. She said that she kept very meticulous records of all her assignments for this organization. It's all also shrouded in the sort of conspiracy and mystery. Victoria claims she tried to get out several times, but she knew too much for Russian police to let her go. So they framed her for murder instead. She said at that point they killed this a la, the mother of Nadia, her neighbor, and they set it up to make it look like she did it, and they started investigation against her. She keeps telling me different versions of the same story where she ended up in the U.S. to try to get away from these people. While hiding out in the U.S., Victoria admits she supported herself by working as a dominatrix. She told me herself she would meet men on BDSM websites, and she would say in interviews that she sort of fulfilled their needs and provided a service. She almost acted like she was doing kind of like a positive thing for these men. However, Victoria denies poisoning or robbing any of her clients. She also denies trying to kill Olga to steal her identity. She told me that Olga had sold her her Ukrainian passport because Victoria was too scared to use her Russian passport. She talked openly about the day that she went over to Olga's house and telling the media that Olga was already feeling sick and she was unwell prior to her getting to the apartment. The reason she gave for why she was targeted for this crime as the potential perpetrator was that she was being framed by the Russians. She's a pathological liar. She always makes some new fairy tale. For prosecutors, Victoria's press interviews are a preview of defense strategies she might try and court, and they're concerned that without evidence she poisoned Olga, those strategies might work. To convict somebody, you need proof beyond the reasonable doubt. And there was this open question of what was it that poisoned Olga, the preliminary tests show that there's no controlled substance in the container. The same can be said for the NYPD's other cases against Victoria. It was a very strange situation that each victim explains the same symptoms. Ruben spent numerous days in the hospital being observed and they didn't find anything with him, but there was something there that was making each of these individuals pretty much tranquilized for a day or two. The NYPD lab catalogue was not big enough to determine the type of drug that was in that cheesecake. So the police department and the district attorney's office spoke and they said, well maybe we have to broaden our horizons. A federal agent contested on their systems, which isn't just the United States narcotics. So I was very excited to hear who they were able to break it down a little bit more. And the federal agent was actually able to identify what was used and it could have killed every single one of these victims. One of the greatest challenges to the investigation into Victoria Nasirova has been proving attempted murder without a murder weapon. But the Department of Homeland Security has access to technology the NYPD does not. When the Cheesecake Container is tested by the Department of Homeland Security, it comes up positive for Finazepam, which is something that the New York Police Department doesn't have in their bracket of controlled substance because it's not a controlled substance in the United States. This is why that first test came up negative. Finazepam is a benzodiazepam, kind of a depressant, that was developed in the Soviet Union, and they call it Russian Rufy. It has depressive effects on the human body. It's used primarily to treat seizures, epilepsies, and things like that. If taken in large doses, can cause the heart to slow down to a point where it arrests and it stops. When investigators see the list of side effects for the drug, which include amnesia, they understand why the victims had a hard time remembering anything. When she was given these drugs, it would give her enough time to go through their apartments to find or locate any jewelry or certificates without them waking up or catching her. A detail of the crime scene in Olga's apartment suggests Victoria meant to do more than just knock her out. Why would the first witnesses say that in late August, when it's hot out, Olga's heater was turned on to the max and the windows were closed and it was incredibly hot in the room. Extreme heat intensifies the effects. So it stands to reason that the heat was ratcheted up as high as it could go in the heat of summer, of the end of August, so that it could make the effects more intense and work faster. Once we had that phase of him, there's more light shining on Victoria that she tried to kill over. These finally have a murder weapon and they can also prove Victoria was the one who used it. Victoria's mouth was swabbed and there was a comparison done between the results of that mouth swab and the results of the DNA on the cheesecake. So with her DNA there, it locks her into her being the one who touched and was able to handle that container. Once it was known, that phenazot pan was in the container, then that became the bow on top of the case to allow the police department and the Queen's DA's office, not only to charge Victoria with larceny, but also charge Victoria with attempted murder because this was an attempt to kill somebody and steal their identity. Following her arrangement, Victoria pleads not guilty to all of the charges against her. Prosecutors start preparing for trial, but despite the new evidence, they hit a roadblock. We came into a lot of trouble going into court with trying to get the male individuals to come and testify. We have to now put you on a stand and you have to tell your story in public to people that you don't know. Some of them decided to date no longer wanted to go forward and prosecute. The Brooklyn case that were falling apart and the Brooklyn DA's office wanted to get something for them. She was originally charged for grand loss and they were downgraded and she played guilty to penitent loss and misdemeanors. For drugging and robbing three men in Brooklyn, Victoria is sentenced to just 90 days in jail. Time she's already served while a waiting trial. We have no legal authority to charge the Russian investigation, so now the only case that remained was Olga's attempted murder case in Queens. But due to the COVID pandemic, the trial for attempted murder is delayed several years. In the meantime, Victoria notches a major legal victory against the city of New York. She didn't have an easy time when she was at Reikers waiting to go to trial. She was assaulted inside of the prison and ended up suffering a bunch of different injuries to her body. A local news station obtains graphic footage of the attack on Victoria and airs it on the evening news. She ended up suing claiming that the guards were negligent in stopping the attack and they were negligent in protecting her. So she ended up suing Reikers for five million, she got 325,000. The money that Victoria was awarded from what happened to her in jail, that turns everybody's stomach that I've spoken to, including mine. After Victoria spent six years behind bars, in 2023, a trial date is finally set for the attempted murder of Olga Speck. We start preparing and more closer to the date for the trial. I got more scared and I realized that I have to see the person who wants to kill me. I don't want her to be outside around people, I was very scared. On January 30, 2023, opening arguments are made in one of the most highly anticipated trials in the country. The suit's pretty wild, you know, a sexy like Vixen trying to kill somebody by feeding them poison cheesecake, meeting guys online, robbing them, BDSM, it's got everything, right? But when Victoria enters the court, she no longer resembles the seductress whose photos have tantalized tabloid readers for years. I just look at the woman, she's changed, you know, she got more way and she was like a regular woman. Several of Victoria's alleged evictims are called to testify, including Olga. You know, Dino starts asking me a question, I was worrying about everything, you know, about the process because I never do that before. Olga came off as a very convincing witness, she came off as credible, she came off as sincere, as did Rubin as well, I did testify. As I said everything true, like she could kill me, she heard, like she heard a lot of people, she did a bad thing and if nobody stops her, she would have been kept doing it. The trial lasted for about a week and a half, it was really emotional and to see these survivors I think really tugged at the heartstrings of the jury. From the very beginning, we looked at this as, Victoria Naserova attempted to kill Olga's Vic, but you can't stop the story there. Your jury is going to say, well why, why would she need a new identity? We said to the jury, there's something very serious going on, there was a red notice that was put out for this woman and she fled Russia. We'd simply alert them to the fact that there was something very serious going on in Russia, we never said anything about a murder, whether she did something wrong or didn't do something wrong. She knows that she's wanted and she knows quite frankly that she's wanted by a government that doesn't afford her the same constitutional protections that we have here. So now, her time is running out in the United States, the valid visa that she had entered the country with was due to expire on September 4th of 2016. The defense insists the state's evidence against Victoria is almost entirely circumstantial. We had the results of the DNA on the cheesecake, but the defense is looking at the fact that there are no third party witnesses. The only person that's saying that Victoria Nasserova was there is Olga Zvik, so there are no eye witnesses, there's no surveillance tape, but I think that ultimately the jury shall pass those arguments. The jury takes only an hour and a half to reach a verdict. When Victoria Nasserova was convicted of attempted murder, a second degree, attempted assault in the first degree, assault in the second degree, unlawful imprisonment and peddler statement. She was sentenced to 21 years behind bars with credit for time served, so she can be out in roughly 15 years. When she was sentenced, Victoria had a full-out outburst in the middle of court and cursed out the judge. What a jam. This woman is a menace to society. It's as bizarre a case as you'll ever see, it'll be unlikely that we'll ever see another murder or attempted murder with a piece of cheesecake. Victoria is paying for her crimes in the United States, but justice for another crime still awaits overseas. I sat next to Nadia when the sentence was given by Judge Holder about the 21 years. I think she saw that as a win, but they'll never be a win until Victoria pays the price for taking her mom's life. Presumably, after Victoria's sentence, the federal government will work out some arrangement with Russian authorities to extradite her directly to Russia, and if that case is still pending, she should be prosecuted for the murder of Al Aleksinkov. From what I've come to know about Nadia Ford's mom, she was a very giving person. She seemed like she was one of those people that people describe as everybody's mom. And I guess she had a little bit more than Victoria had, and Victoria turned out wanting that whatever she had for herself. This is a person that is dangerous. This is a person that doesn't belong outside of jail. In the beginning, I just hate her, but after time, I start questioning myself. And I start more studying about psychology, and I forgive her, like really forgive her. I not say that she's a good person. She is dangerous, she in the right place. I forgive her for just for myself, because I want to live my life and enjoy without thinking of her.