Italian Citizen Charged with Attempted Bribery; Case Sent to Court

The Criminal Investigation Department of the Republic of Armenia has concluded the preliminary investigation into the attempted bribery of an official from the Investigative Department of the Armenian State Revenue Committee by a citizen of the Italian Republic. This information was reported by the Investigative Committee.

According to data obtained during the pre-trial proceedings, a 57-year-old Italian citizen, with the assistance of the deputy director of an Armenian LLC, attempted to bribe an official from the Investigative Department of the Armenian State Revenue Committee with a particularly large sum of money through an intermediary.

The Italian national, who serves as the director of the Armenian branch of an Italian company, learned that a criminal case was being investigated against his company under Article 205, Part 2 of the Criminal Code of Armenia. Consequently, he requested the deputy director of another LLC he managed to find an intermediary in order to bribe the official with the special authority to dismiss the case.

The deputy director, having a good rapport with the tax inspector, arranged a meeting on August 5, 2018, in one of the cafes in Yerevan, where he asked the tax inspector to assist in halting the investigation into the criminal case, stating that the Italian manager was prepared to offer a bribe.

In turn, the tax inspector, intending to embezzle a particularly large amount of money, knowing that it would be impossible to fulfill the promise and having no intention to take any action in favor of the Italian businessman, informed the deputy director that he was close to the official of the Investigative Department and could facilitate reaching an agreement regarding the bribe.

To bribe the official from the Investigative Department, the inspector demanded an amount of 5,000,000 Armenian drams from the Italian businessman through the deputy director, claiming that in exchange, the official would allegedly work towards halting the criminal proceedings.

Accepting the offer regarding the bribe, during August 2018, the deputy director received and transferred this particularly large sum of 5,000,000 Armenian drams as a bribe to the tax inspector, who subsequently embezzled it, resulting in the businessman being unable to complete the crime of bribing the state official through an intermediary.

Based on the gathered sufficient evidence, the citizen of the Italian Republic has been charged under Article 34-312, Part 3, Clause 1 of the Criminal Code of Armenia. A signature bond not to leave has been chosen as a precautionary measure.

Notification has been issued regarding the completion of the preliminary investigation, and the criminal case with an accusatory conclusion has been sent to court.

Note: A suspect or accused in a presumed crime is considered innocent until proven guilty in accordance with the procedure established by the criminal procedure code of the Republic of Armenia and by a legally binding court decision.