Sergei Mavrodi, charged with diverting 110 million rubles ($4.3 million) worth of private investments through his MMM pyramid scheme in the early 1990s, was placed in custody pending trial in 2003. But it was not until late April of this year that he was formally convicted of fraud.
A Moscow district court ruled that Mavrodi must pay 20 million rubles ($774,000) in compensation to jilted MMM investors, as well as a 10,000-ruble fine (about $390).
The Chertanovsky Court said he had cheated 10,000 investors out of their money during the scheme's heyday in 1992-1994, but that the actual number of those affected could be in the millions.
Analysts say the scheme succeeded largely thanks to a massive advertising campaign, with soap-like television commercials telling the story of a man-on-the-street who turns into a millionaire after putting his modest savings into MMM shares.
Mavrodi was jailed on tax evasion charges after the MMM pyramid collapsed in 1994, prompting thousands of cheated investors to take to the streets in protest. But he was set free the following year to run for parliament.
He secured immunity from prosecution by winning a seat in the State Duma, parliament's lower house, only to lose his mandate a year later. He then went into hiding, and police spent seven years trying to track him down before his arrest in 2003.
