One of the women alleged to have received the vulgar letters is Valentina Gunina, currently ranked as the world’s ninth strongest female chess player.
“There was a condom inside. A used one. I had no idea anyone else was getting them. I thought it was just me,” the 33-year-old chess grandmaster told The Telegraph as she recalled receiving her first letter mailed to her chess school in Moscow when she was in her early 20s.
“There are lots of crazy people around.”
Most of the female players never mentioned the letters to anyone but their families. Some of the women were repeatedly targeted and received letters to their home address, Meduza reported.
Ms Gunina told The Telegraph that she only started worrying when she got a letter at the tournament in Latvia last year.
She said: “I never received any letters to my home address – only to my school, which made me feel safe. This time it triggered me because it was me again and many more girls.”
A former chess player who saw the letters at the tournament told The Telegraph: “This is the stuff from books about maniacs. There is no other way of putting it”.
Fide, the international governing body for chess, said it took action as soon as it discovered the letters.
It said: “We reported it to the police right away on behalf of the players, to minimise distractions to them. We can confirm that the Latvian Police took it seriously and it is actively investigating.”
