The Prosecutor’s Office for Combating Organized Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS) announces on Wednesday, July 20, the indictment of the criminal case against four people for the robbery of a woman from the city of Odessa, Ukraine, in March this year in Ialoveni.

The defendants are three men and a woman, who was in a cohabiting relationship with one of them. According to the PCCOCS, the four are aged between 28 and 38 and reside in Chisinau and Straseni. Previously, the three men had been tried for swindling, theft and hooliganism. After their arrest on the day of the robbery – 12 March this year – prosecutors charged them, and the Ialoveni court in Hincesti admitted the men’s applications for remand in custody.

Subsequently, the investigating judge ordered one of them to be placed under house arrest, but this was challenged by the PCCOCS prosecutors, so that they are currently in pre-trial detention. According to the criminal law, robbery committed on a particularly large scale is punishable by imprisonment for 12 to 15 years.

The robbery was committed on the morning of 12 March, at around 5 a.m., near Piatra-Albă, Ialoveni district. The woman was being transported to the hotel in the car of one of the four men after the customs authority in Leuseni had forbidden her to continue her journey to Germany with the sums of money she had with her in cash – more than 150,000 US dollars (over 2,000,000 lei), almost 700 euros (13,000 lei) and 170,000 Ukrainian hryvnia (over 100,000 lei).

“The transporter had picked her up from the three at the entrance to Chisinau, as they claimed that the fourth was an urban taxi driver, and their schedule would not have allowed them to continue their journey to the hotel. In fact, the investigating authority found that this was a ploy to mislead the law enforcement officers in investigating the crime. For the transportation services, they charged the woman a total fee of USD 240.

However, instead of transporting her to the hotel in the capital, the driver drove to Ialoveni and told the victim that he was actually from Balti and did not know the area well enough, but that they would soon arrive at the hotel. After passing a cemetery near Piatra Albă in Ialoveni, he stopped, got out, forcibly pulled the victim out of the car and hit her, and continued on his way with her luggage, which contained the money from the sale of two properties in Odessa; her bank cards, including the one on which she was receiving her pension; and other belongings.

After being robbed, the woman continued her journey on foot and knocked on the gate of the locals in Piatra Albă, Ialoveni, who gave her access to the telephone so that she could notify the police. After the crime was discovered and criminal prosecution was undertaken, the lawmen detained the men, and most of the money was recovered from the carrier, who had deposited it with his parents in a village in Straseni – in their basement: the 170,000 hryvnia and just over $100,000,” a statement from the Prosecutor’s Office said.

At the request of the PCCOCS prosecutors, the investigating judge ordered the seizure of the luxury car used in the commission of the crime, worth about €10,000, with a view to subsequent special seizure to compensate the victim. Pending a final court ruling, the four are presumed innocent by law.

The case was announced by the authorities on 13 March this year, when investigations were carried out by the National Investigation Inspectorate (INI) and the Ialoveni Police Inspectorate, under the direction of the Ialoveni District Prosecutor’s Office. Subsequently, after ten working days, the acting Prosecutor General, Dumitru Robu, ordered the withdrawal of the file from the district prosecutor’s office and assigned it to the PCCOCS prosecutors.