AZE.US
What began as a tourist romance in Azerbaijan has turned into a legal dispute over $25,000.
According to Baku TV, Olga Chernovskaya, a woman originally from Poland who lives in Toronto, met a man named Rashkhan Abdulhalimli during a visit to Azerbaijan in 2024. Their relationship continued after she returned to Canada. Over time, she said, the man asked her for money on different occasions.
Chernovskaya claims she transferred him a total of $25,000 during the relationship. She said he later told her he had been detained by police and needed more money.
“During one year of our relationship, he abused my trust and took $25,000 from me,” she told Baku TV.
After that, she said, she filed a complaint with Azerbaijan’s Interior Ministry. The case was later referred to Sumgayit, where the man lives.
The man, identified in the report as Rashkhan Abdulhalimli, rejected the suggestion that the matter was fraud. He said the money was a loan.
“I borrowed money from her. There is a big difference between a debt and fraud,” he said.
Asked whether he would repay the money, he said he planned to do so in installments.
Lawyer MirJavid Miriyev told Baku TV that the key issue in such cases is intent. If a person receives money as a loan and intends to repay it, the dispute is usually handled through civil proceedings. But if investigators establish that the person intended from the beginning to take the money by abusing trust, the case may be treated as a criminal matter.
Azerbaijan’s Interior Ministry said police had received an appeal related to a debt dispute between the parties. The inquiry found that Abdulhalimli had received money from Chernovskaya as a loan.
Because the dispute was considered civil in nature, authorities declined to open a criminal case. The complainant was advised to defend her rights through the courts.
The case highlights a familiar legal gray zone: when personal relationships, trust and money transfers collide, proving whether a dispute is a debt or deception can be far more difficult than the emotional fallout itself.
AZE.US