A 62-year-old man was sentenced to six years in jail for laundering ill-gotten gains from the illegal organization of online games of chance through the agency of an offshore company he managed by power of attorney, IPN reports.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime and Special Cases, criminal proceedings were instituted in 2016, while in 2018 the man was brought to justice. As the games of chance in Moldova can be organized only by the state, he was hiding his illegalities and the bets collected by the offshore company were processed by another company based in Moldova, after the participants in the games made payments through public POS terminals.

Afterwards, the culprit coordinated the conversion from digital wallets into lei and the collected money was transferred by that company to accounts in Germany and Liechtenstein of the foreign company that organized betting games.

The Buiucani Court of Chisinau ordered to confiscate the sum that was illegally obtained and transferred abroad – almost 28 million lei – and maintained the distraint on property owned by the culprit. The judge also ordered that after the sentence takes effect, over 700,000 lei seized during searches at the man’s home in 2016 should be confiscated for the benefit of the state. The man was arrested in the courtroom. He could not be held accountable for the illegal organization of sports betting games as the statute of limitations passed.