On November 4, a man boarded a flight to Los Angeles at Copenhagen Airport without a passport or ticket. However, he got stuck in US customs control, and since then he has been coming up with weirder and weirder explanations for how he got on the plane and where his documents are. Right now, his nationality also seems to be quite confusing.
Let’s start from the beginning: the hero of the story is called Sergei Flagimirovich Ochigava. The name has a Russian sound, but it cannot be said with certainty that it is Sergei. He did not have a valid passport or visa, and although US customs inspectors found Russian and Israeli ID cards in his luggage, it has not yet been proven that they belong to him. More interestingly, investigators found on his phone a photo that partially showed a passport containing his name, date of birth and passport number. But not his picture. In any case, his nationality is not listed in the FBI report.
When he was stuck at the checkpoint at Los Angeles Airport, he initially said he did not have his passport because he had left it on the plane. This soon turned out to be untrue. His name was not found on the passenger list for the Copenhagen flight or any other international flight. After all the other passengers were successfully registered at the border, it was proven that the man was a stowaway. The FBI filed a federal complaint on November 6. During the indictment on December 5, Sergey pleaded not guilty, and the trial was scheduled for December 26. He faces up to five years in prison.
But how did Serge move from Europe to America without papers?
It seems that Sergei himself does not know the answer to this question. He told investigators that he had not slept for three days when he boarded the plane to Copenhagen, and that he did not understand what was happening. Sergei also insisted he “didn’t know” how he got on the plane, was “not sure” if he had a ticket and “didn’t remember” how he got through airport security in Denmark without a boarding pass.
He also told investigators that he had a doctorate in economic philosophy and marketing, and that his last job was in Russia.
According to the flight attendants’ memories, when the plane took off from Copenhagen, Serge sat in a seat that should have been empty, and after takeoff he walked around the passenger cabin, changing seats and trying to talk to other passengers, who ignored him. Possibly hungry, Sergei allegedly ordered two dinners, then tried to steal a chocolate bar from staff.
Whether Sergej was really just a troubled, sleepless professor, or a master spy, making everyone laugh with his seemingly deranged behavior, will probably not be revealed until the trial on December 26.
(guardian)
