A 30-year-old Russian woman on death row for cocaine trafficking in Vietnam Maria Dapirka wrote a touching ‘farewell letter’ to her mother, explaining that she was set up by her lover who posed as a top footballer.
Her lawyers have said she has accepted she may soon be executed, but still clings on to some hope she will be freed after three years in prison. Dapirka, who lived in Thailand when she met her lover, known as Nick, was caught with almost 3kg of cocaine by Vietnamese customs on a flight from Singapore, Daily Mail reported.
She said the cocaine was planted in her luggage by Nick – or ‘Chibueze’ – who apparently has a penchant for seducing attractive young women before conning them into carrying drugs.
Dapirka’s verdict and sentence was due to be handed down by a Vietnamese judge yesterday, in a Ho Chi Minh city court, but the session was postponed ‘for further investigation’ for the fifth time.
In a letter to her mother, Olga a desperate Dapirka said she was ready for any decision by the court.
She wrote: ‘Don’t worry about me. I am fine. I am ready for any end. ‘I hope you will manage to visit me.’I’ve not seen you for four years. I miss you so much! Please take good care of your health.’
Pro-Kremlin news site Mash in Russia published a picture purporting to be ‘Nick’, the man she accuses of framing her after they met in Thailand. The Nigerian media has claimed the same man used different fake names to dupe dozens of other women with model looks to act as drugs mules.
His real name is not known. ‘He seduced the girls promising to marry them and establishing intimate relationships with his victims, but little did they know what they have been chosen for.’
A campaign organised by Maria Dapirka’s friends calling for her release alleged that ‘a whole criminal syndicate of Nigerian men work in Asia and all around the world, like Maria’s so-called boyfriend.
The woman was caught with two nylon bags packed with cocaine in her hand baggage, and more wedged inside a magazine, at Ho Chi Minh City’s Tan Son Nhat International Airport in August 2014.
‘Maria would not carry cocaine, she has always lived a strictly healthy lifestyle,’ said her brother Vadim.
‘She does not eat meat, nor smoke, nor drink and has always said that she thinks all of those things are really disgusting.’
