A married couple has been handed prison terms for illegally obtaining a state housing certificate while resettling from the Baikonur complex, the website infohub.kz reports.
According to NUR.KZ, citing the Baikonur complex prosecutor's office, the agency said in its official Telegram channel that prosecutors supported the state prosecution in a criminal case against individuals who committed an offense under Part 4 of Article 159.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The charge concerned fraud in obtaining social payments by submitting knowingly false and inaccurate information and by concealing facts that would terminate such payments, committed by a group of persons in a preliminary conspiracy on an especially large scale.
The investigation and the court established that the couple's aim was to illegally obtain funds under a Russian presidential decree "On Providing Social Payments to Certain Categories of Citizens of the Russian Federation Subject to Resettlement from the Baikonur Complex for the Purchase of Residential Premises in the Russian Federation." Knowing full well that they were not entitled to a housing certificate because one of them owned a residential property inherited from his mother, the couple deliberately refrained from registering ownership of that real estate for about three years — specifically in order to obtain the state housing certificate.
After receiving the certificate worth more than 6 million rubles (more than 32 million tenge), they cashed it in by buying an apartment in the Russian Federation. Only after that did the heir register ownership of the inherited residential property.
During the proceedings, the defendants pleaded not guilty. Following the trial, the 26th Garrison Military Court, agreeing with the state prosecutor's position, sentenced them to 4 years in prison with a fine of 500,000 rubles (2.7 million tenge) and 3 years in prison with a fine of 400,000 rubles (2.2 million tenge), respectively.
In addition, the court granted the Baikonur complex prosecutor's claim to recover 6,379,064 rubles (34.5 million tenge) from the convicted man in favor of the state. Pending compensation for the damage caused by the crime, the court kept in place the seizure of the apartment purchased with the illegally obtained funds.