Five residents of Primorye were sentenced to prison terms for killing a tiger.

The court found five residents of Primorsky Krai guilty of killing an Amur tiger listed in the Red Book of the Russian Federation and sentenced them to prison terms of five to five and a half years. This was announced on June 9 by the regional prosecutor's office.

"The court sentenced the guilty to imprisonment for a term of five to five and a half years with a fine of 100 thousand rubles. A correctional colony of general regime has been designated as the place of serving the sentence, and a strict regime has been designated for one of the participants," the department's Telegram channel says.

According to the prosecutor's office, the defendants killed an Amur tiger in 2021, after which they skinned it, preserved it and stored it in a freezer. Later, the attackers sold the skin to a Chinese citizen for 1 million rubles, but the deal was carried out as part of operational search measures, and the money turned out to be a fake. After that, the defendants were detained.

"The prosecutor's claim for the joint recovery of the amount of damage from the defendants, which amounted to more than 2.4 million rubles, has also been satisfied," the prosecutor's office added.

The regional prosecutor's office announced on March 21 that a resident of Primorye would stand trial for shooting an Amur tiger. It was clarified that a man born in 1982 shot a predator with a carbine, after which he butchered the animal's body, took it outside the hunting grounds and hid its parts in a forest area.