TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A Russian woman who fell in love with a Taiwanese man she met online is now desperately trying to regain custody of her son after the man's family allegedly duped her into signing adoption papers.
Read More: Russian woman fights for custody of son after Taiwanese family allegedly abducts him.
In 2017, Anna Kuznetsova, then 20, began an online relationship with a Taiwanese man living in New York surnamed Miaw, who is 14 years her senior.
Miaw eventually flew to meet her in Moscow, where the two spent six days together. However, Kuznetsova soon discovered she was pregnant.
Kuznetsova resisted Miaw's initial demands that she have an abortion, believing he would eventually come to accept their child. After the baby was born, Miaw twice convinced the financially struggling young woman to come to Taiwan — first to visit his family and then to move in with them.
After Miaw returned to New York, Kuznetsova says the family began to act strangely, with Miaw's father insisting she hand over the child's Russian passport and other legal documents, ostensibly to apply for national health insurance. Miaw later convinced her to sign what he claimed were immigration documents for her son — documents Kuznetsova could not read, as they were in Chinese.
Legal fight
Her friends began questioning why they had never returned her son’s passport and legal documents. When she asked for the documents and questioned her intentions, she claimed the papers were needed for a routine meeting at the embassy.
In fact, there was no meeting. The day after the supposed embassy meeting, Miaw began confronting her about when the documents, including household registration papers, would be returned
She responded by saying she would return them when she received her son's birth certificate. She claims this sent Miaw into a rage and that he threatened to "kick you out of Taiwan, not ever give you another dollar, and never let me you see our son again."
Kuznetsova said that Dec. 3 was "among the worse days of my life." That day, she received a note from Miaw saying his parents had taken their son to the “countryside” for 10 days. She said her instincts told her that "He would take my son from me."
She said Miaw's mother never responded to her Line messages. The next day, she went to the police station to report that her son was missing.
However, to her shock, the police officer asked if she was a Russian national; when she confirmed this, he said “I was about to contact you. The child’s family has filed charges against you.” Kuznetsova says she spent the next 3.5 hours at the police station.
Police told her she had been charged with copying the father’s ID, distributing it, and stealing the family’s residence papers. She then showed the police her text message correspondence with the family, saying they had falsely accused her.
Betrayal
It was not until that day that she realized the Chinese-language document she had signed in January was actually adoption papers. While Miaw had told her she was signing immigration papers, she was actually signing away the custody of her son.
Terrified by her son's disappearance and suspicious that they may try to send him to the U.S., she contacted an attorney that next day. She then learned that it is a crime to convince someone to sign papers in Chinese if they do not disclose the content.
She also learned that Miaw and his parents may be in legal jeopardy for child abduction and withholding her legal documents. Late that afternoon, she returned to the police station to file criminal charges against the grandparents for child abduction.
Kuznetsova said she will soon be activating a civil case to void the adoption order since it was granted under false pretenses. She added that she is in contact with the Russian Embassy, and they are helping her coordinate with Taiwan's National Immigration Agency (NIA) to prevent her son from leaving Taiwan in the event the grandparents try to take him to the U.S.
She says that after the grandparents were notified of her countersuit, they returned to Taipei. As of publication, they are refusing to allow Kuznetsova to see her son, and she is attempting to obtain temporary custody.
Taiwan News has reached out to Miaw for comment on Kuznetsova's allegations, but he has not yet responded.
