MOSCOW, April 26 (RAPSI, Oleg Sivozhelezov) – Moscow’s Ostankinsky District Court has sentenced former manager of Russia’s Probusinessbank Nikolay Alekseyev to 4 years in prison for embezzling 2.44 billion rubles (about $44 million), the court told RAPSI on Wednesday.

Additionally, Alekseyev was fined 1 million rubles ($18,000). The court also granted a lawsuit filed by Probusinessbank, the victim in the case, seeking to collect 2.44 billion rubles from the defendant.

Earlier, a prosecutor asked the court to pass a 5-year prison sentence and a 1-million-ruble fine on Alekseyev.

According to investigators, from September 2014 to July 2015, Alekseyev, acting as a head of the bank’s corporate finance department, conspired with 15 accomplices to embezzle funds belonging to Probusinessbank.

In August 2015, the Russian Central Bank revoked the license of Probusinessbank, acting upon the results of an inspection revealing that “the bank’s management carried out large scale operations having markings of assets stripping of the bank.”

On October 27, 2015, the Moscow Commercial Court declared the bank bankrupt, appointing the state corporation Deposit Insurance Agency as the bankruptcy commissioner.