MOSCOW, June 3 (RAPSI) – The Shcherbinsky District Court in Moscow has sentenced two entrepreneurs to 8 and 4 years respectively in a penal colony in a criminal case over massive embezzlement of budgetary funds worth over 1 billion rubles ($15 million) allocated for construction and reconstruction of Russia’s Defense Ministry facilities, the court informs RAPSI on Wednesday.

Kadyr Karakhanov was sentenced to 8 years in a maximum security penal colony, he was also fined more than 6.7 million rubles (about $100,000 at the current exchange rate); Arsen Oshkabayev – to 4 years in a general regime penal colony, according to the court.

The defendants were found guilty of especially large embezzlement committed by an organized gang; Karakhanov was additionally found guilty of bribery on a major scale.

Last year, the Moscow City Court reduced the sentence of yet another defendant in the case, ex-first deputy director of the Federal Agency for Special Construction (Spetsstroy) Alexander Zagorulko from 8 to 6 years behind bars.

Investigators and the court established that between September 2013 and December 2015, within construction and major repairs of three Defense Ministry’s facilities Zagorulko and his accomplices including ex-deputy director of Spetsstroy Alexander Buryakov, and subcontractors Kadyr Karakhanov, Vakha Artsygov and Arsen Oshakbayev embezzled over 1 billion rubles by preparing and submission of documents containing false information of the volume and quality of the fulfilled works to a customer.

Earlier, Buryakov had been sentenced to 4 years and 9 months behind bars and a 600,000-ruble (about $9,000) fine.