Please, Expose this con artist. Her name is Natasha Blazhko from Odessa, Ukraine. Here is her game: She represents many many women who speak no English and this is perfect for Natasha because she is fluent in the English language. Natasha writes ALL the letters to the men ( most letters are identical ) and when they reply to their ladies Natasha translates and give the translated copy to her clients. NATASHA HAS FULL CONTROL. Even when the men visit Odessa, Natasha and her client meet him at the airport. Natasha is with them 'most of the time' for translation. Those conversations she translates to suit herself. I, personally, at the request of Natasha, sent over $250.00 per month, for over a year, so she could deliver flowers to my fiancee every week. My fiancee NEVER saw a flower. Natasha even wrote to me, supposedly, on behalf of my fiancee, for some phony, unexpected emergency to obtain $1500.00 and many other sums for whatever had occurred. I sent the money to Natasha and she was to deliver. My fiancee never saw a penny. My loss is over $8000.00. I became suspicious and I decided to bring in another translator to inquire because some of my questions I felt was not given correct answers. As previously stated, my fiancee NEVER saw a flower or any other money. My fiancee began speaking to some of her friends that were also clients of Natasha's about this and they too have had their suspicions. Natasha is a criminal first class. She is clever but needs to be exposed.

I am a single white American male, aged 49, self-employed and living in Houston, Texas. Two women in Odessa, Ukraine – Valentine Drozdova and Natasha Blazhko have since 2000 been working an elaborate visa scam apparently on dozens of men. Briefly this is how it worked. They posted their pictures on Match.com Corresponded with men and encouraged them to come visit them. Then they would tell them to stay at an apartment owned by Natasha’s mother charging whatever rent they thought the market would bear. This varied from 60$/day to $120/ day and they would split the proceeds. As I was only involved with Valentine I can only speak about how she operated. She would correspond with a guy and encourage him to visit her in Odessa. When he visited, she would stay with him in the apartment and have sex with him. Towards the end of the visit she and Natasha would talk about making a fiancée visa and if he agreed then Valentine would bring him to meet her mother and ask permission to marry. Then after he returned to the states the requests for money would begin. Here is the complete story - I began corresponding with Valentina back around September of 2001. It was really accidental. I just randomly selected the Ukraine on match.com one evening when I didn’t see anyone new on the local profiles. I thought it would be fun to see what women in other countries write in their profiles. I had never even heard about “Russian Brides” syndrome. When I came to her profile, I thought she was really pretty so I sent her a note saying she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. I never expected her to even answer. I just figured it would make her day, and she would smile and delete it since I was in Houston and she was in Odessa. About 2 weeks later I got a long email from her. I didn’t even remember who she was and had to look up her profile. After a few months of emails I decided that it would be fun to go to Odessa and meet her in person. I hadn’t taken a vacation in several years and I figured it would be a great adventure. I scheduled my trip for the week of Valentines Day and her birthday figuring that would be at least two really romantic evenings together. She was very excited about it and made arrangements for an apartment for me to rent while I was there. It turns out that this apartment belonged to her friend Natasha’s mother and the three of them were splitting the proceeds from the rent. When I arrived in Odessa, Valentina and Natasha met me at the airport. Natasha was pretty fluent in English and did most of the translating for us while I was there. Valentina spoke no English – ( I have since found out that Valentina is very fluent in English but pretended to not speak any.) and I spoke about 100 words of Russian. Anyway it was a magical two weeks, like a fairy tale. .Her daughter Julia joined us at the apartment on weekends and during the week she stayed at Valentina’s flat with Valentina’s mother. A few days before I was going to leave, Natasha and Valentina and I had dinner together and Natasha asked me if I wanted to do a fiance visa. This came as a big surprise to me. After all I had only known this woman for 10 days but it had been such a great 2 weeks that I figured sure, at least I can lock her into and exclusive relationship, and then visit a few more times and be sure it was all real. I was even taken back to her mother to ask her permission to marry Valentina. Up to this time she never asked me for money and even when I was there she never asked me to buy her anything. I just paid for all of our cabs and meals and the concerts we went to. So I went back to the states “engaged.” Now I was aware of the visa scams and was skeptical about all this from the start but having her daughter stay with us and having me meet her mother sort of threw me and I was fairly certain that things were legitimate. We kept writing and I made plans to go out either mid-May or at the beginning of June. She nixed mid-May saying that Julia was having exams and she needed to help with that, so I set it for June 1 till June 20th. Now about 2 months before the trip she emailed me and asked me for help to pay for her passport which was $100.00 and money for English lessons which were $120 per month. Since I was the one who encouraged her to do this (take English lessons) I didn’t feel it was unreasonable so I sent her around $600 to cover a few months of lessons and the passport. Then a few weeks before my departure date she emailed me again and asked me if I would buy her a hot water heater, saying that the government had cut off the hot water. I had read about that on-line so I figured since I was going to be staying in her flat and it was still cold there hot water would be nice. So I sent her $400.00 for that. The money was sent via Western Union. Copies of her emails requesting the money are shown and the end of this message. OK - so I fly to Odessa and stay with her for 3 weeks in June. About a week of this was in Fyadorovkov, the village where her mom lives and where she grew up. I thought it would be great seeing where she came from. I kept working on my Russian during the 4 months between the two visits and had about 500 words by the time I made the second trip, so I was able to talk with her a lot more and get a better read on what type of person she was. After I got to Odessa, almost from day one she talked a lot about money. Everything was “these are Italian shoes $300.00,” “this is a French suit - $700.00.” And kept making comments about how she was a “doroga” woman (expensive woman) and that perhaps I should find one who was “ni doroga” not expensive. This raised a flag for me because she was supposedly earning about $200/month and it seemed unlikely that she was able to afford all this stuff on her own. Even on the first day I was there, she asked me to buy her a new bed and a new washing machine. I told her I didn’t see the point since she was going to be moving to the states with me in a few months. Finally I got fed up with it and I called Natasha and we all sat down and talked about it. . I told her I hadn’t come to Odessa to buy a wife. That since I left in February she had emailed me over and over telling me how much she loved me and how she couldn’t wait to see me again. Repeatedly encouraging me to come back as quickly as possible. Two nights before I left we got together with Natasha again and once again had the conversation about money. So I flew back to the States with a lot of doubts and second thoughts about her and her apparent fixation with labels (Italian, French) money. I left her documents for the fiancée visa with her as a few things were still missing and told her to fed-ex them to me when everything was complete. I decided that I would mull things over some more and perhaps make at least one more trip before I brought them to the states. The day after I got back a friend of hers here in the states called me and asked me how I was. I told her about the trip and she told me to be careful. That Valentina lies and that Valentina had told her she was marrying a millionaire. I told her that we had discussed money and that it didn’t seem to be a problem. I thought she was just exaggerating about me but later I realized that she had already made arrangements to marry before I got there. I didn’t hear anything from her after I got back. I sent her several emails and after about 2 weeks had passed, I finally emailed Natasha to see if there was any problem. She emailed me back and said no that she was in the village. So I figured she just went back out to get the copy of her birth certificate that she had applied for when we were there and was just hanging at her moms. Then Sunday I got an email from the friend of hers here in the States. She asked me how I was and I said busy and that I was looking forward to hearing from Valentina when she got back from the village. She emailed me back an hour later and said David I have to tell you, Valentina got married. So then her comment about the millionaire she had made when I first came back made sense. I realized that she must have had this planned before I made my trip and that my feeling about only being there to spend money on her while I was there was correct. Well, I was furious. Evidently I flew out of Odessa on June 20th and he flew in on June 21st. I wasn’t so upset about losing her because as I’ve said I had a lot of doubts about her but I didn’t like being played like that and I had still made an honest commitment to her and I expected the same. I also felt that most likely the guy she had married was only chosen because he had the deepest pockets and was probably clueless about her “character.” I felt that I had a moral obligation to let him know whom he was involved with so he could make a better choice. So I hired a private detective in Odessa to go to the marriage license agency and get his name and address for me. I have since learned from talking with other friends of hers that this had been going on since 2000 and there have been a whole string other men providing a very comfortable income. I am in the process of putting a criminal fraud case together so if you have had contact with either of these women and can contribute any more details please contact me.

My Dear Don,
I hope you are fine. I miss you… I would like to ask to help me with money now, because it will be difficult for me to pay for my passport, English lessons and Juliya. Nobody helps me now, I hope just you. I am really glad that you met with immigration lawyer. When you send me a list of requirements you should use FedEx they are faster. .the rest of the letter was just b.s. about some holiday. I LOVE you, I WANT YOU TO BE ME NEAR NOW!!!!! YOURS FOREVER, VALJA

Second request for money - May 22, 2002