State Received 16 Million Dram Instead of 51 Million: Another Corruption Revelation by the Criminal Police

Another corruption-related crime has been uncovered based on materials prepared by the anti-corruption and economic crimes department of the main directorate of the criminal police.

Specifically, it has been revealed that in accordance with the government’s decision of April 23, 2003, a building and property previously valued at 180,000,000 dram was sold by the state property management department of the ‘Ajapnyak’ universal store for 22,500,000 dram to a pre-known buyer. In 2003, the Yerevan mayor made a decision to define the boundaries of the land occupied by the 'Ajapnyak' universal store, belonging to the same citizen, and to provide additional land space.

Based on that decision, in 2004, two lease agreements for land plots of 7,470 sqm and 3,880 sqm were signed between the municipality and the citizen. However, during the preparation of the materials, it was discovered that before signing the aforementioned lease agreements, a government decision on December 24, 2003 established new zoning and cadastral values for the lands, under which the cadastral value of the citizen's leased land totaling 11,350 sqm increased from 16,623,437 dram to 51,347,400 dram.

In such conditions, with the preliminary intention of embezzling state property, the citizen falsified the dates of the two lease agreements concluded in 2004 and presented the already forged agreements regarding the lease of the land plot, supposedly signed in 2003, to the first instance court of Yerevan’s Kentron and Norq Marash communities. Based on these forged documents, the court ordered to carry out the alienation process in favor of the citizen using the previous cadastral value.

As a result, the citizen, exploiting the negligent attitude and passivity of former officials of the Yerevan municipality, deceived the state, paying only 16,623,430 dram to seize a land area of 11,350 sqm with a total cadastral value of 51,347,000 dram, causing the state a particularly large financial damage of 34,723,560 dram.

A criminal case has been initiated regarding the incident, which has been forwarded to the investigative committee for further inquiry.