Citizens Misled and Directed to Unfavorable Transactions: Investigative Committee

The Armenian General Prosecutor's Office is examining materials related to several cases where individuals posing as money providers misled citizens and directed them to engage in transactions under extremely unfavorable conditions through criminal schemes, ultimately unlawfully extracting funds from them.

Specifically, between March and May of 2019, four citizens reported separately to various divisions of the Armenian Police and the National Security Service (NSS) that they had completed transactions of varying monetary amounts with 'Gevorg Vahrami Mkrtchyan' LLC operating at the 'Yerevan' exhibition, resulting in them receiving only a small fraction of the agreed sum, while the remaining amount was never delivered.

Based on these citizens’ reports, preliminary investigations revealed that the individuals visited the office of 'Gevorg Mkrtchyan Vahrami' after following advertisements promising quick cash. They were informed that if deemed creditworthy, they could receive the money they desired. However, they were told that they needed to visit various stores with company employees to process credit purchase agreements for different household items.

Agreeing to this method of receiving money, the citizens accompanied the office employee to various home appliance stores, purchasing various items, mainly mobile phones and their accessories, on credit. They then handed these items over to the entrepreneur's office, signing contracts to receive only 60 or 70 percent of the item value, with the rest promised after a delay of 2 days to one week. However, the money was never received during the specified time.

Upon evaluating the found circumstances in the compiled materials, investigators determined that the dispute between the citizens and the particular entrepreneur was of a civil nature, and based on this, decisions were made to refuse criminal proceedings under Article 178 of the RA Criminal Code (fraud) due to the absence of criminal components.

However, within the framework of verifying the legality of these decisions at the RA General Prosecutor's Office, all prepared materials related to the four cases were examined, which resulted in the finding that the entrepreneur did not perform any functions or provide any intermediary services regarding the bank's issuing of credit for purchasing items through installment plans.

Furthermore, there is no information about what service the entrepreneur charged the individual for, based on the actual collection of 40% or 30% of the product's value. Moreover, the factual data obtained indicate that the citizens acquired household goods through the stores via financing and sold them to the entrepreneur at a price significantly lower than their value, following the guidance of the office employees.

This indicates that the data obtained in the compiled materials show that the citizens made transactions with the entrepreneur under evidently unfavorable conditions, which the entrepreneur ostensibly benefited from. Consequently, by the decision of the RA General Prosecutor Arthur Davtyan, the decisions made by the investigators to refuse to initiate a criminal case based on the prepared materials were revoked, and criminal cases under part 1 of Article 213 of the RA Criminal Code (usury) were initiated regarding the incident of benefiting from a transaction made under extremely unfavorable conditions, the preliminary investigation of which has been assigned to the RA Investigative Committee.

We urge citizens to exercise caution in their dealings with entities that make similar offers, avoiding transactions that involve the criminal manifestations described in the outlined schemes, and to contact law enforcement agencies if they fall victim to such schemes.