Moscow, Apr 6 (IANS/RIA Novosti): A former Russian Federal Security Service (or FSB) officer has been sentenced by a Moscow court to two years in prison in a $1.5 million fraud case, the interior ministry said.
Andrei Ponkin and his accomplice Telman Aleskerov, posing as finance ministry officials, offered to help get embezzlement charges against an unnamed former bank official dropped for $1.5 million in November 2012.
They were detained after accepting an advance payment of 1.5 million rubles (about $50,000).
Both men admitted their guilt.
Aleskerov was also sentenced to two years in prison.
The interior ministry previously said Ponkin was a one-time official representative of exiled former billionaire businessman Boris Berezovsky, who was discovered dead in the bathroom of his home in Ascot in Britain, March 23.