MOSCOW, September 16 (RAPSI) - Yevgeny Portnov, one of the accused in a $3 million embezzlement case involving state energy corporation Rosenergoatom, has been found guilty and sentenced to 3 years in a general regime penal colony, Kommersant daily reported Monday.

According to investigators, the funds were embezzled between 2004 and 2007. Rosenergoatom's management embezzled funds earmarked for the purchase of nuclear waste repository equipment.

Portnov and his accomplices agreed with a German firm on the purchase of equipment worth 1.8 million euros and then falsified two commercial offers to Rosenergoatom.
One offer was submitted on behalf of a German supplier, with the cost for equipment being substantially exaggerated at 5.55 million euros; the offer also included a 100 percent pre-payment.

The second offer, which was more beneficial, was submitted on behalf of a company controlled by the group of alleged criminals. Eventually the latter was awarded the contract.

The equipment was bought from the German company and then sold to Rosenergoatom. The malefactors embezzled over 100 million rubles ($3 million), which was the difference between the offers.

According to the newspaper, two Portnov's accomplices stood trial in December 2011. Sergei Tyurin, Deputy General Director of a company controlled by the group of criminals, was sentenced to 1,5 years in a penal colony settlement.

Oleg Tsyganov, the former head of Rosenergoatom's marketing, was found not to be of sound mind and sent to a psychiatric facility.

Rosenergoatom subsidiaries include all ten nuclear power plants in Russia.