NOVOSIBIRSK, April 3. /TASS/. A court in Berdsk, the second largest city in the Novosibirsk region, has sentenced on Friday Mayor Ilya Potapov to ten years in a colony of strict regime. His former deputy Vladimir Mukhamedov has been sentenced to 9 years in prison. The two men have also been sentenced to a fine of 500 million rubles ($8.7 million) each, a TASS correspondent reported from a courtroom.

Potapov was found guilty of taking bribes and abusing power, and Mukhamedov — of mediation in bribery. The court found that the two officials’ criminal activities had resulted in the underpayment of about 24 million rubles ($421,000) to the city from leasing and selling land on its territory.

The trial in Berdsk is the result of a series of recent anti-corruption investigations that involved former Sakhalin region governor Alexander Khoroshavin, vice-governor of the Chelyabinsk region Nikolay Sandakov, head of the Moscow City Property Department Ilya Kindinov, deputy head of the Judicial Department Lyubov Lopatina and former Head of Federal Penal Enforcement Service Alexander Reymer.

According to presidential chief of staff Sergey Ivanov, 8,000 people were convicted of corruption in Russia during the first nine months of the past year, 45 of them were lawmakers and parliamentary candidates, 2,400 — civilian employees and public sector workers. Criminal penalties were inflicted on 500 members of law enforcement agencies, including on 136 bailiffs and 28 customs officers. A total of 4,600 people were fined.