A man aged 38 from Azerbaijan, who has stayed in Penitentiary No. 13 during the past seven months for murder, is suspected of organizing from prison the blackmailing of a 60-year-old from Bălți and of asking €10,000 from him, IPN reports.

When it became known that the man from Bălți was a witness in the case in which he was accused, the man called a friend from Azerbaijan and asked him to come to Moldova to blackmail the witness. The claimed money represented the recompense for his detention. The 33-year-old man who arrived from Azerbaijan extorted different sums of money from the victim and his relatives under threats of use of violence and death. On July 20, the suspect was arrested when he was receiving the last trance of 60,000 lei.

In the evening of July 22, the judges from Bălți accepted the prosecutors’ request and the executor was remanded in custody for 30 days.

Blackmail committed by an organized criminal group carries a jail term of seven to ten years and a fine of 92,500 to 117,500 lei.