On 15 March 2023, the Prosecutor issued a new decision to initiate a criminal case against A.A., who served in the Ministry of Defense in 1997-2011, have been occupying the positions of Deputy Head of the 4th department and Head of the 5th Department of the of the General Department of Police for Combating Organized Crime in 2011-2018.

 

Based on the criminal proceedings under investigation in the Anti-Corruption Committee, it was justified that A.A., an official performing public service in 1994-2018, participated in entrepreneurial activities illegally, was engaged in other corrupt activities and as a result distorted the true nature of the acquired property and the paid amounts, giving them a legitimate appearance in order of laundering illegally obtained property and income, as well as their introduction into legal civil circulation.

 

In particular, during 2008-2010 A.A. acquired 100% of the shares of “Urbanism-Petrol” LLC and legally registered it in the name of his wife, who had not previously been engaged in entrepreneurial activity in any field and in the name of his 9 years old son, who was a minor at that time, but actually participated in Company management through them.

 

Realizing the existence of low legal income property, the value of which significantly exceeds the legal income registered in his name and the name of his wife (which may become the reason and object for investigation by the competent authorities), in 2014         A. A. began to hide the rights to property acquired by criminal means and its real possession by alienating them to relatives under formal donation and sale agreements, in order to hide their true nature and source of origin.

 

Thus, according to the data obtained during the preliminary investigation, it was proved that A.A. laundered especially large amount of money-351 million 497 thousand 422 AMD and real estate in the amount of 75 million AMD.

 

A.H., who actually performed the functions of the Head of the Security Service of the former Chief of the Police of Armenia V.G. and being in the group headed by V.G., during 2013-2014 laundered the property of particularly large amounts of money acquired by the latter through criminal means, concealing and distorting their source of origin, rights and ownership of the property upon prior agreement.

 

 

In addition, A.A., having the obligation to submit an annual declaration on property and income since 1 July 2017, intentionally hid the credit in the amount of 100,000 USD provided to him by one of the banks in 23 August 2017 and did not include it in the annual declaration of the Ethics Committee, which resulted in the non-declaration of the specified large property.

 

Based on the above mentioned and by the decision of the supervising prosecutor, a new criminal investigation was initiated against A.A. under the Article 190, Part 3 and the Article 314.3 of the Criminal Code of the RA, adopted on April 18, 2003.

 

As a result of the assessment of the evidences collected during the pre-trial proceedings, the investigator conducting the proceedings came to the conclusion that the conviction of the accused by a competent court for the crime imputed to him is highly likely, and announced the end of the preliminary investigation.

 

The appeal brought by the Prosecutor General of the Republic of Armenia was granted according to the decision of the Court of Cassation of the RA, dated 23 December 2022, the application of preventive measure(s) against A.H. was recognized as insufficient, as a result of which A.H. was detained (continues to be in custody).