Who is Sergey Vladimirovich Ochigava, the Russian man accused of flying to the U.S. with no plane ticket?

An old joke says if you wake up in the morning and can’t remember what happened the night before, you must have had a pretty fun night. In Nov. 2023, Russian man Sergey Vladimirovich Ochigava arrived at LAX with no passport or plane ticket, taking that premise to a new level.

According to The New York Times, Ochigava was detained at LAX in Nov. 2023. When questioned, Ochigava said he was Russian with a doctorate in economics, who hadn’t slept in days and couldn’t remember how he got on the plane from Copenhagen to Los Angeles in the first place. Ochigava could also not explain what he was doing in Denmark or how he got there.

The only forms of identification Ochigava had on him were Russian and Israeli identification tags, other than a partial picture of a physical passport on his phone. The name on the document matched, but the face on the passport could not be seen.

Who is Sergey Vladimirovich Ochigava?

According to The Guardian, a Russian website, iStories, listed Sergey Vladimirovich Ochigava as a man who graduated with a degree in economics from Plekhanov University in Moscow, and had recently closed an art gallery in the city.

Ochigava, who speaks English, reportedly behaved erratically on the flight from Copenhagen to Los Angeles and changed seats frequently but otherwise created no disturbance, so the passengers largely ignored him. All of the other passengers listed on the plane manifest were accounted for.

The Guardian reported that Ochigava was charged with being a stowaway on an aircraft and pleaded not guilty. Ochigava was expected in court in late Dec. 2023. If convicted, he could face up to five years in prison.

A spy on the run or a man in a fugue state?

With many questions surrounding the unusual Sergey Vladimirovich Ochigava situation, some on Reddit commented it sounded like the plot of a true-crime novel, a Jason Bourne spy movie, or that Ochigava may have experienced a dissociative fugue state, a rare and little-understood psychiatric condition characterized by periods of amnesia and wandering, and thought to be caused by traumatic experiences.

As of this report, little else is known about what was behind Ochigava’s seemingly unplanned and unexplained trip to America — a medical episode or some unfolding chapter of international intrigue. Meanwhile, Copenhagen airport authorities confirmed Ochigava was seen on Copenhagen airport surveillance footage without a ticket, and how he managed to get on the plane to the U.S. was under investigation.