A Moscow district court has jailed a businessman who swindled the city out of 19 million rubles ($668,000) by supplying it with street surveillance cameras that transmitted prerecorded video loops instead of live feeds.
Dmitry Kudryavtsev will serve 4 1/2 years in jail and pay a fine of 450,000 rubles, the Prosecutor General's Office said on its web site Thursday.
Three employees of his company were also convicted in the case but got off with suspended sentences. The four will also pay back 16 million rubles in damages to City Hall.
It was unclear Thursday whether the convicts would appeal.
Kudryavtsev, who run the StroiMontazhServis company, implemented his scheme in 2009, tricking city officials into believing the cameras were functioning for months, prosecutors said.
He and his employees were also convicted of writing a computer virus that disabled about 800 cameras installed by an unidentified rival company.
