In Sochi, official sentenced to 12 years in prison for land frauds

The court in Sochi has sentenced the head of a rural district to 12 years in prison for stealing more than 300 land plots worth over 1 billion roubles.

As reported today by the General Prosecutor's Office, "the Lazarevskoe District Court of Sochi, Krasnodar Territory, has passed a verdict of guilty to Karapet Kulyan, who took for more than 20 years the post of the head of the Verkhneye Loo Rural District of Sochi, for illegal acquisition of rights on municipal and federal property by a large-scale fraud."

According to investigators, in 2007-2008, Kulyan, acting as a member of an organized group, produced a forged appendix to the statement of the mayor of Sochi of 1992 on allocation of land plots to citizens and false excerpts from accounting books. Based on these documents, more than 300 land plots from the territory of the city of Sochi were registered to counterfeiters.

According to the prosecutor's office, the damage caused to the city and the country by convicts' actions made over 1 billion roubles.

The "Gazeta.Ru" reports that two Kulyan's accomplices were sentenced to 12 and 6 years of a minimum security colony.