MOSCOW, November 7 (RAPSI) – A court in Russia’s Primorsky Krai sentenced a Chinese hotelier to 9 years in prison for attempting to give a bribe in order to obtain an operation permit for a hotel he had built in Vladivostok, the website of the Prosecutor General’s Office informs Thursday.

Additionally, the foreigner was fined 25 million rubles (about $400,000), the statement reads.

According to the news release, the defendant, knowing that the hotel construction was not authorized, wanted to receive a favorable conclusion on the compliance of his project with the technical requirements and a commissioning permit for a bribe.

He found an intermediary, who in fact acted as part of the law enforcement tactical intelligence operations, and gave him 500,000 rubles, a part of the 5-million-ruble bribe. The Chinese attempted to bribe a chief for shared-equity construction of the regional Constructional Surveillance Inspectorate.