MOSCOW, December 28 (RAPSI) – The Basmanny District Court of Moscow on Friday sentenced CEO of Forum Holding Company Dmitry Mikhalchenko to 4 years and 7 months in a minimum-security penal colony for alcohol trafficking, a RAPSI correspondent reports from the courtroom.

The court also gave two other defendants in the case, Boris Korevsky and Alexey Mishchenko, 5 years in a penal colony and a 3-year suspended sentence respectively.

Earlier this month, the prosecution asked the court to sentence Mikhalchenko to 10 years in high-security prison and sought a 1.5-million-ruble (about $22,000 at the present exchange rate) fine as a punishment for the businessman. The court at that time was also asked to sentence Korevsky to 9 years in prison and Mishchenko to 7 years.

Mikhalchenko was arrested and detained in late March 2016. Investigators claimed that he had organized trafficking of alcoholic products from countries of the European Union. According to the prosecution, in 2015, the products were bought in European shops, collected in the port of Hamburg and then smuggled into Russia. The caused damage was estimated at more than 61 million rubles (about $1 million).

Forum Holding Company established in 2011 is one of the largest multibusiness companies in Saint-Petersburg.

The company has united several dozens of the city’s enterprises and organizations. Forum Holding consists of industrial enterprises, such as "Spinning Mill named after S.M. Kirov", the oldest textile industry enterprise in Russia, "Izmeron" factory, one of technological leaders of Russia’s downhole equipment market, according to the company’s website.