The ex-head of Rosgranitsa received nine years in prison on charges of fraud involving half a billion rubles.

The Meshchansky District Court of Moscow sentenced the former head of Rosgranitsa Dmitry Bezdelov to nine years in a general regime colony on charges of fraud, TASS reports .

He was found guilty of fraud on an especially large scale (part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code) for 490 million rubles allocated for the development of border checkpoints.

According to investigators, the funds were stolen from September 2009 to May 2013 by Bezdelov and the director of the Federal State Institution “Directorate for the Construction and Operation of Rosgranitsa Facilities” Oleg Senkevich, as well as the head of the facilities development department Danila Vavilov.

The trial of the case began in February, with a total of eight people accused in it. Among them are another head of the directorate of Rosgranitsa Sergei Sazonov, his deputy Sergei Kozlenkov, director of the Valuable Council company Evgeniy Chaika, former head of the Terminal company Zurab Katamadze, entrepreneurs Nikolai Afinogenov and Alexander Kazartsev. All except the last one deny guilt. Senkevich is on the federal wanted list.

Everyone except Bezdelov received from two to eight years in prison. At the same time, the court excluded from the verdict the charge under Article 210 of the Criminal Code (organization and participation in a criminal community), notes . Interfax

Bezdelov was detained in Rome in 2014; in 2015, Italian authorities decided to extradite him to Russia, and in April 2016, the ex-official was taken to Moscow.