A man and a woman aged 36 and 38 were sentenced to jail for making a man beg on the streets of Moscow for five years. The sentence was passed after prosecutors filed an appeal and the case was retried following the dropping of the case, IPN reports.

According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, in the spring of 2007 the couple convinced the man to go to Moscow to beg. The man agreed as he was in a difficult financial condition and wasn’t working. The couple organized his trip and he practiced begging from the spring of 2007 until the end of the year. Similarly, from 2008 to 2012, the couple organized the systematic transportation of the man to Russia for the same purpose.

After the Chisinau City Court in 2023 ordered to drop the charges against the married couple, the prosecutor in charge of the case filed an appeal, requesting the quashing of the sentence and the retrial of the case. On March 6, 2024, the Chisinau Court of Appeals accepted the appeal and the defendants were found guilty and sentenced - the woman to seven years in prison and the man to seven and a half years.

The decision of the Court of Appeals is final and enforceable, but can be challenged in the Supreme Court of Justice.