MOSCOW, July 26 (RAPSI, Diana Gutsul) – The Zamoskvoretsky District Court of Moscow has given Yevgeny Rogachyov, former chief of corporate business of Master-bank, a 4-year suspended sentence and pardoned him, lawyer Ivan Sustin told RAPSI on Wednesday.

Twelve defendants in the case over illegal cashing 2 billion rubles ($33.5 million at the current exchange rate) were sentenced to suspended terms ranging from 2 to 4 years, the attorney added.

Rogachyov was pardoned along with other defendants as part of the broad amnesty program on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the victory in World War II.

According to investigators, he was a member of an organized group which offered businessmen a range of services, including tax evasion and money laundering schemes.

In November 2013, the Central Bank revoked the license of Master-bank for false data reporting, low-quality loans and loss of capital. Master-bank was ranked among top 100 Russian banks by assets and operated one of the largest ATM systems.

The Moscow Commercial Court later declared the bank bankrupt and started bankruptcy proceedings, with the Deposit Insurance Agency as the insolvency administrator.

In May 2015, Moscow police launched a criminal case against former executives of Master-Bank, a mid-sized Moscow bank, on suspicion of staging premeditated bankruptcy of the company. According to investigators, they were responsible for granting bad credits with no chance of return. Overall, they allegedly had given away 17 billion rubles ($283 million). Later the damage was estimated to be at 61 billion rubles ($1 billion).

Master-bank, founded in 1992, held 47.3 billion rubles ($790 million) in private deposits as of October 1 and 80.9 billion rubles ($1.4 billion) in assets as of November 1, 2015, according to RIA Novosti rating.