carrying papers with the name "Vasile Ștefănescu", in order to report on Romanian Army movements in preparation for Operation Barbarossa (the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany, in which Romanian troops, under the command of Marshal Ion Antonescu, participated; "see Romania during World War II"). He was apprehended by Romanian border guards after just two hours (according to subsequent reports, he was given away by the fact that he could not express himself in Romanian). His case was investigated June 6–12 by the Special Investigations Service's Lieutenant Colonel Emil Velciu; Nicolschi confessed he had been recruited into Soviet intelligence by NKVD Captain Andreev. After a short trial, he was sentenced to life imprisonment and hard labor on August 7, 1941. He was sent to prison in Ploiești, and then Aiud, where other Soviet spies, such as Vladimir Gribici and Afanasie Șișman, were also held. It was during the time that he began using his adopted name and passed himself off as an ethnic Russian.