He’s the 31-year-old with a Russian pop-star wife, a taste for bling and a conviction for stealing $1 billion. Or is he Robin Hood in Europe’s poorest country, owner of a chain of discount stores selling to hard-up pensioners?

Ilan Shor is playing on the latter in an audacious bid for Moldova’s parliament – and the immunity it bestows – in a November election that has already ignited tensions in a former Soviet republic torn between East and West.

Shor says he is innocent and his seven-and-a-half-year sentence still needs Court of Appeal approval before coming into effect. In the meantime, the man convicted of the “theft of the century” is grabbing headlines with a dash for parliament that could effectively keep him out of jail.