MOSCOW, June 29 (RAPSI) – The Second Western District Military Court has sentenced Forum Holding CEO Dmitry Mikhalchenko to 20 years in high-security penal colony for embezzling nearly 1.2 billion rubles during the construction of a presidential residence near Moscow, RAPSI has learnt in the court.

On the totality of the committed crimes, he received the long jail term and a fine in the amount of one million rubles, the court’s representative said.

The businessman was found guilty of the organization of a criminal community and large-scale embezzlement.

Other defendants in the case received prison terms ranging from 3 to 15 years. Moreover, the court granted a Federal Guard Service’s claim and recovered 1.2 billion rubles from the convicts as a compensation for the caused damage.

The court found that the gang members had stolen about 1.2 billion rubles from allocated from the budget for the construction of various state facilities with federal status in the president’s residence in Novo-Ogarevo in the Moscow Region. The accomplices intentionally overrated the value of works, equipment, and materials, according to case papers.

Earlier, in December 2018, the Basmanny District Court of Moscow found Mikhalchenko guilty of alcohol smuggling and sentenced him to 4 years and 7 months in prison. 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).