Illegal Extraction of Tuff Recorded: Criminal Case Launched

The Department of Protection of State Interests of the Prosecutor General's Office of Armenia has conducted an examination based on a letter and information received from the State Environmental Inspection and Mining Inspection Bodies regarding the legality of extraction from a quarry operating in the administrative area of Koghbavan community in Armavir Province.

For this purpose, necessary documents were requested and received from the State Revenue Committee of Armenia as well.

The investigation revealed that in the volcanic tuff deposit of Sevakasar located in the Koghbavan community of Armavir Province, 1,824 cubic meters of tuff, totaling 45.6 million AMD, was illegally extracted by a company during the period from June to October 2019 without any legal right for subsurface use in a previously exploited quarry. This has caused significant damage to the subsurface and the useful minerals contained within it.

Considering that the examination indicated sufficient data on apparent criminal characteristics relating to causing significant harm to the subsurface, the environment, and the useful minerals therein, due to violations of the rules of subsurface use and protection or deviations from relevant projects or extraction without a contract, a criminal case has been initiated by the Department of Protection of State Interests of the Prosecutor General's Office based on the second part of Article 291 of the Criminal Code of Armenia.