POISONED BY MY LOOK ALIKE!
Olga was nearly killed by her friend in a twisted scheme to steal her identity
Beautician Olga Tsvyk thought her client was visiting for a routine, at-home beauty treatment. She never expected to wake up in a hospital bed to discover she’d been the victim of an attempted murder.
Viktoria Nasyrova requested she visit Olga at her New York home for an “eyelash emergency” touch-up in August 2016. But the appointment turned deadly when Nasyrova offered Olga a slice of cheesecake she’d brought with her as a thank you.
Olga, then 35, soon began to feel sick and drowsy. Her last memory was seeing Nasyrova roam around the room before she passed out as a result of consuming the sedative-laced cheesecake.
“She wanted to kill me,” Olga later told the media. “I’m not God and I’m not a judge. But she deserves to be in jail. Thank God she can’t hurt anybody else.”
Olga’s unconscious body was found by her sister Iryna Kozachenko in her bed the following day, clothed in lingerie, with pills by her side, staged to suggest a suicide attempt.
“She was feeling very bad and she just looked at me,” Iryna told the jury. “She looked like a vegetable. She could barely move her eyes. It looked like she was asleep.”
After being discharged from hospital, Olga realised that her identity documents, along with jewellery, cash, clothes and her employment card, had been stolen.
Authorities tested the cheesecake residue and pills, and discovered the items were laced with Phenazepam – a strong sedative only found in Russia.
GUILTY VERDICT
Last month, Nasyrova, 47, was found guilty of attempted murder after prosecutors revealed her bizarre plot to steal Olga’s identity.
The duo bear a striking resemblance to one another with their dark hair, similar complexions and physical traits, as well as both being Russian speakers.
Queens district attorney Melinda Katz said the jury saw through Nasyrova’s deception, finding her guilty on a range of charges, including attempted murder, assault and unlawful imprisonment.
“She laced a slice of cheesecake with a deadly drug so she could steal her unsuspecting victim’s most valuable possession, her identity,” Melinda said.
“Fortunately, her victim survived and the poison led right back to the culprit.”
Nasyrova will be sentenced this month and faces up to 25 years in prison.
PLOT FOILED
Bizarrely, a similar identity-theft plot was foiled in January, when a woman known as Sharaban K was arrested on murder charges in Germany after allegedly murdering her lookalike.
Prosecutors allege the 23-year-old beautician sought out her doppelgänger, Khadidja O, on Instagram, lured her to nearby woodland and murdered her with the help of her boyfriend Sheqir K.
It’s thought Sharaban searched for a lookalike in a bizarre plan to help her fake her own death after becoming involved
in a family dispute.
When the young woman’s body was found in an abandoned Mercedes in August 2022, reports initially identified the body as that of Sharaban’s.
However, autopsy findings raised questions over the true identity of the victim. Khadidja, who was also 23, was stabbed more than 50 times and her face was severely injured.
German media have dubbed the case the “doppelgänger murder”.
If convicted, Sharaban and Sheqir could face life imprisonment.
‘She laced a slice of cheesecake with drugs’