A lawyer from Chisinau was arrested by anticorruption officers and prosecutors on charges of swindle in the evening of February 2. This is suspected of swindling a woman out of €20,000 for helping to swifter transfer her husband from a Russian penitentiary to a Moldovan one, IPN reports.

According to the National Anticorruption Center, the convict’s wife asked for the lawyer’s advice as to the possibility of hastening the transfer. Even if this was outside his area of competence, the lawyer promised that the man would be in Moldova in a month and a half. For his services, he asked €20,000 that he was to receive in two tranches – €10,000 in advance and €10,000 after the convict was transferred to Moldova. Despite the initial agreement, the lawyer obliged the woman to give him all the money together, saying he already solved the problem and her husband would soon reach Chisinau.

The Buiucani Court of Chisinau earlier allowed the person who was convicted in Russia to be transferred to Moldova and the Ministry of Justice, together with the competent Russian authorities, was to start the transfer procedure. Under the court’s judgment, the convict was to serve the remaining time in a Moldovan jail.

The lawyer had been followed by officers of the National Anticorruption Center for a period, while prosecutors monitored the telephone conversations between the lawyer and his client. The lawyer didn’t solve the case and the woman asked her money back. The lawyer was arrested when he was returning a part of the received money.

Searches were carried out in the home, office and cars of the lawyer.