MOSCOW, March 10 (RAPSI) – A court in Tajikistan has sentenced two members of the infamous GTA gang, who had absconded Russian investigators, to 25 years in prison each, the official website of Russia’s Prosecutor General’s Office reports.

Boir Gulomov and Murodzhon Karimov have been found guilty of several grave crimes, the statement reads.

In 2014, several gang members were arrested in Russia and later were sentenced to life in prison. Gulomov and Karimov managed to escape and were put in the international wanted list.

As Tajikistan’s legislation prohibits extradition of its nationals to other states for being brought to criminal responsibility, Russian prosecutors sent to the Republic case papers with the request to prosecute the defendants.

Prosecutors claimed that from 2012 to 2014 the gang committed 15 robberies resulted in the murder of 17 people and attempted murder of another two. Moreover, the gang members were allegedly behind numerous attacks against automobile drivers. The criminals were installing handmade spikes on the roads causing drivers to stop and murdered victims for their possessions afterward, according to prosecutors.

The gang leader was killed in an armed stand-off with the police.

Russian media called the perpetrators of murders in the Moscow Region and M-4 Don highway a GTA gang as a reference to the popular videogame.