Woman Wanted for Murder in Russia Tries to Poison NYC Stylist with Cheesecake: "Pathological Liar"

When a woman was found near death in her New York City apartment, surrounded by pills, it looked like a suicide. Strangely, Olga Tsvyk’s last memory was eating dessert offered by one of her cosmetologist clients, Viktoriya Nasyrova — then all she saw was darkness.

“That’s how brilliant Viktoryia Nasayrova was, in that, she thought of almost every single detail to make this the perfect crime,” prosecutor Dino Litourgis said on Snapped, airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen. “What she didn’t think about was the likelihood that Olga would survive.”

When she woke up, Tsvyk had been robbed and her passport was gone.

“It’s as bizarre a case as you’ll ever see,” Litourgis said. “It’ll be unlikely that we’ll ever see another murder or attempted murder with a piece of cheesecake.”

No one could figure out what happened to Tsvyk, until she stumbled upon stories of other victims who all had the same story: dining with a beautiful Russian woman, and then waking up with no memories, their belongings missing. The series of unexplained poisonings and thefts would lead New York City police to a Russian mother’s murder investigation, an international warrant, and a manhunt for the alleged killer.

And it turned out to be a private investigator who found the fugitive, seven months after the NYPD began looking.

“Within six hours my surveillance team found Viktoriya and her then-boyfriend going out shopping using that vehicle,” Herman Weisberg, a private investigator with Sage Intelligence Group, said on Snapped. “It flashed through my brain, like, ‘This is the craziest thing ever. I don’t know how me and my team just did this, but there it is.’ Boom. Done. I mean, I got her.”

On August 29, 2016, a Queens, New York landlord called 911 to report one of his tenants, Olga Tsvyk, was unconscious in her apartment.

“You have this beautiful woman, just basically comatose, in lingerie,” Caitlyn Becker, senior reporter for DailyMail.com, said on Snapped. “It almost looks like if you picture what a soap opera scene would look like if you staged a dramatic end of life scene.”

Tsvyk was found unresponsive and pale on her bed, with pills surrounding her. She was rushed to the hospital, and eventually got better. All toxin screens performed on her were negative for controlled substances, and the cosmetologist was unable to remember most what happened to her.

“Before she got really ill, the last thing she remembers was someone coming over, a client of hers, Viktoriya,” Becker said. “Viktoriya tells Olga that she’s going to Mexico in a few days, and she absolutely needs to have her lashes fixed. She knew that she wasn’t working that day … [but] could she come to her apartment to get this fixed. Olga says yes. She was the last person who saw her before she got really ill.”

As a thank you for the house call, Tsvyk said her client brought her cheesecake.

“I eat, not because I was hungry or something, but just you know for politeness,” Tsvyk explained on Snapped.

Within minutes, she was ill, and her memory of what came after wiped.

A cheesecake container was found in Tsvyk’s trash, and police tested it for substances, but nothing showed up. It was after Tsvyk was discharged from the hospital that she realized she’d also been robbed. Items such as her passport, papers to work in the U.S., jewelry, and money were missing.

When Tsvyk was eventually well enough to return to work, she spoke to one of her clients about her mysterious illness and shared her story.

“This customer says 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 a date with a woman, had dinner with her, ate food, became very sick, went to the hospital,’” Litourgis said.

That client shared Ruben Boreukov’s phone number with Tsvyk.

“He sent me her picture and it’s her,” Tsvyk. “Then I was like, shocked.”

Ruben Boreukov woke up in the hospital, his memory gone, after he’d gone on a date with a woman he met online. Doctors ran tests but couldn’t figure out what was wrong with him.

“The medical records between Ruben and Olga were almost identical,” Litourgis said.

Similar to what happened to Tsvyk, Boreukov realized cash and his watch were missing.

“His American Express charge card has something like $2,600 worth of new charges that he has no idea where they came from,” Becker said.

As police began looking for patterns across New York City’s burrows, they realized they had two more cases in Coney Island. One of the men was able to identify the address where he met his date, and police got the name of the woman staying there: Viktoriya Nasyrova.

When shown her picture, all of the victims identified her as the last person they were with.

Viktoriya Nasyrova, 41, had a previous arrest in Manhattan for theft. But there was also an international warrant for her arrest out of Russia.

“Olga’s case has been connected to Viktoriya, and now it’s wrapped up in this international fugitive who is wanted for killing someone halfway across the world,” Becker said.

Back in October 2014, Alla Alekseenko befriended her neighbor in Russia, Viktoriya Nasyrova. But after Nasyrova borrowed some clothing and never returned it, Alekseenko decided to confront her. That was the last time Alekseenko’s daughter, Nadezda Ford, ever heard from her.

When Ford realized her mother’s last phone call was with Nasyrova, she flew to Russia from New York City to try to find her mother.

“The place has been ransacked. There are a lot of things missing. Documents, fur coats, perfumes,” Litourgis said. “In Nadezda’s mind, her mom is a hostage. She’s been kidnapped. She’s been taken somewhere. Worst case scenario: She’s dead.”

Through her own detective work, Ford found surveillance photos of her mother with Nasyrova near her mother’s home.

“She got pictures of Viktoriya driving south in the car with her mother’s body slumped over next to her in the passenger seat,” said Khristina Narizhaya, a reporter with the New York Post, on Snapped.

In April 2015, Russian police were able to track Nasyrova’s phone records to find her location when she was with Alekseenko. Cadaver dogs found the burnt remains of her body. Alekseenko was identified through dentail records. But by the time Russian police charged Nasyrova with murder, she had disappeared.

After hearing from friends that Viktoriya Nasyrova was spotted in New York City, Nadezda Ford decided to hire a private investigator to find her.

Herman Weisberg scoured Nasyrova’s Facebook account and zeroed in on the reflection in her sunglasses in a selfie she posted. He was able to see the interior of the car she was in, along with its unusual stitching and dashboard. Weisberg spent a day looking at the interiors of vehicles in an NYC parking lot, until he found a make and model that matched the one in Nasyrova’s photo — a Chrysler 300. He also used her “likes” on her Facebook account, including Mexican and pizza restaurants, to narrow down the part of town she frequented. Within hours, his team had spotted Nasyrova and her vehicle.

His investigators followed Nasyrova back to her apartment, and then tipped off the NYPD so they could arrest her — seven months after they began searching for her in connection to the poisonings.

“I wasn’t even aware at that time of what had transpired with Olga,” Weisberg said. “I mean, I had my hunches about [Nasyrova] 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 20, 2017, Viktoriya Nasyrova was arrested by New York City police. When police searched the luggage at her apartment, they found Olga Tsvyk’s employment authorization card and Ukranian passport, along with her jewelry.

“They’re not 100 percent twins, but they can be mistaken for each other,” Brian Flynn, former NYPD detective, said on Snapped. “I believe she was trying to change her identity to be Olga. To hide who she actually was. Maybe because of the Interpol warrant.”

The last piece of the puzzle was figuring out what substance was used to poison the victims. Although NYPD’s tests had turned up nothing unusual, the Department of Homeland Security later tested the cheesecake container left in Tsvyk’s apartment, and detected phenazepam.

“[It’s] kind of a depressant that was developed in the Soviet Union. And they call it Russian roofie,” Becker said.

Nasyrova’s mouth was also swabbed to confirm it was her DNA on the cheesecake container.

When it came time for trial, several of the victims didn’t want to testify. But in January 2023, victim Ruben Boreukov was one of those who did.

“As I said, everything’s true,” Boreukov said on Snapped. “Like, she could have killed me. She hurt a lot of people. She did a bad thing, and if nobody stops her, she would have kept doing it.”

Viktoriya Nasyrova was convicted of attempted murder, assault, and larceny. She was sentenced to 21 years in prison, and is scheduled for release in 2038 at the age of 55. It’s unknown if she’ll face murder charges in Russia after finishing her sentence in the U.S.

Watch all-new episodes of Snapped on Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen and the next day on Peacock.