Many State Properties Sold at Significantly Lower Prices, Prosecutor's Office

The Prosecutor General's Office of Armenia has conducted a study within the framework of its 2021 work program, focusing on the protection of state interests during the transfer of state-owned real estate from 2016 to 2020. The findings have been reported by the Prosecutor's Office.

Through selective studies, it has been revealed that in numerous cases concerning property units (real estate) located in Yerevan and various regions of Armenia, the processes for the transfer of state property were implemented with corrupt abuses that were essentially systematic in nature.

Specifically, responsible officials from the State Property Management Department of Armenia (formerly named) misused their official positions against the interests of their service, violating the provisions of Article 9, Part 2 of the Law on Real Estate Valuation Activities of Armenia, by offering one particular private company to carry out real estate valuation work without legal grounds or signing a contract.

During this period, the company's specialists prepared false conclusions regarding the significantly undervalued property based on its true value, which were verified by the company's director. Subsequently, those conclusions were used by the responsible officials as a basis for conducting auctions for the transfer of the mentioned real estates, resulting in their sale at prices ranging from multiple times lower than their true values.

As a result of the transfer of state-owned properties carried out in this manner, the preliminary damage caused to the state concerning the properties identified in the study amounts to approximately 790 million AMD in total.

This means that in many cases, the responsible officials of the State Property Management Department of Armenia exhibited unprofessional or negligent attitudes towards their duties, leading to severe consequences for the state due to failure to perform their obligations properly or abusing their official powers.

In response to the recorded facts, the State Interests Protection Division of the Prosecutor General's Office of Armenia has initiated a total of 20 criminal cases under the features of Article 308, Parts 1 and 2, or Article 315, Part 2 of the Criminal Code of Armenia over the past year. In 5 instances, the results of the investigations have been forwarded to the bodies conducting pre-trial criminal proceedings for examination in conjunction with other initiated cases.

As mentioned, a large-scale pre-investigation is being conducted regarding the previously presented criminal cases by the Prosecutor's Office of Armenia as well. Information regarding the results will be provided periodically.