In Kirov, an entrepreneur was convicted of land fraud.

      The Pervomaisky District Court of Kirov has handed down a verdict in a case of fraud on an especially large scale. The defendant turned out to be a 44-year-old sole proprietor who illegally acquired ownership of a plot of land of more than 3,700 square meters.

      According to the prosecutor’s office, the man undertook to build a collective storage facility for the needs of a consumer cooperative on the leased plot. He organized the construction of a temporary structure that did not conform to the project documentation, then submitted fictitious documents to the Kirov administration that allowed him to complete a sale-and-purchase transaction for the plot. In doing so, he paid only 20% of the cadastral value of the land. The market price of the plot at the time exceeded 5 million rubles.

      The court sentenced the businessman to three years in a general-regime penal colony. The convicted man was taken into custody in the courtroom.

      Earlier, the prosecutor’s office moved to challenge the sale-and-purchase transaction and filed a lawsuit. Shortly thereafter a ban on registration actions involving the plot was imposed; the plot is now estimated at more than 23 million rubles. Court proceedings on this matter are ongoing.