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In Komi, former department chief and his deputy from Pension Fund of Russia found guilty of corruption crime

The court found the evidence gathered by the Komi Regional Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation sufficient to establish an indictment for former Chief of the Department on Major Construction and Property Relations of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation Sergey Ryzhkov and his former Deputy Igor Kondratenko. They were found guilty of taking a bribe by a group of persons in a preliminary conspiracy on especially large scale (Part 6 of Article 290 of the Criminal Code of Russia).

The investigation and the court established that, in 2013, the Komi Regional Office of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation had held an auction that had resulted in REIT LLC entering into a state contract for the sale of a building for the needs of the Ukhta Office worth more than 165 million roubles. Ryzhkov and Kondratenko, acting as a group of persons in a preliminary conspiracy, in accordance with a previously reached agreement with one of the owners of the building, had contributed to the decision to allocate funds for the acquisition of the building, as well as to the signing and execution of the state contract. For that, they had demanded a cash reward of 18 million roubles from the owner and the persons he had been representing. During 2015-2016, the defendants had received a part of the total amount of 8 million roubles as a bribe. Further transfer of money had been supervised by officers of the FSB of Russia. In July 2017, having received 4.5 million roubles, a mediator engaged by the defendants had been detained, and subsequently - Kondratenko and Ryzhkov, red-handed. In total, the persons involved had received the bribe of 12.5 million roubles from the total amount of 18 million roubles.

The court sentenced the defendants to punishment as follows: Ryzhkov to 10 years of imprisonment in a strict-regime correctional colony, with a fine of 180 million roubles and deprivation of the right to hold certain posts for 12 years; Kondratenko to 5 years of imprisonment in a general regime penal colony, with a fine of 36 million roubles, and deprivation of the right to hold certain posts for 5 years. The court also ruled to confiscate the money received by the defendants as the bribe.