Former Aragatsotn Governor and Brother Embezzled 72 Million AMD from the State

The former governor of Aragatsotn, while officially aware of the implementation program for the North-South corridor construction, conspired with S.M., then head of the Kakavadzor community, and his brother, N.S., to misrepresent the operational designation of a 7,800 m² agricultural land plot purchased by N.S. from the Kakavadzor community in 2005 for 35,200 AMD. This information was released by the Prosecutor General's Office.

According to the government decision made on May 29, 2009, S.S., appointed as governor of Aragatsotn, understood that the North-South corridor would pass through the M-1 Yerevan-Gyumri-Georgian border highway, including through the administrative area of the Kakavadzor community. He conspired, along with S.M. and N.S., to change the intended designation of the land fraudulently and artificially inflate its cadastral value for the purpose of selling it to the organization responsible for the North-South corridor project at a significantly higher price.

With the intention of selling the aforementioned land at inflated prices on behalf of the Republic of Armenia, S.S. allowed N.S. to carry out illegal construction on the land post-August 6, 2009, where unauthorized structures were built, subsequently using his authority to persuade S.M. to abuse his official powers and commit official forgery.

Specifically, during the criminal proceedings examined by the National Security Investigative Department, it was established that S.S., fully aware of legal violations in the process of legalizing unauthorized constructions, motivated by mercenary interests, included the land belonging to his brother in a letter sent to the Ministry of Territorial Administration on March 4, 2010. This was part of a list of areas recognized as having exceptional public interest regarding expropriation, creating a real opportunity to sell it for an amount significantly exceeding the original value, thereby fulfilling their intent to embezzle a particularly large sum of state funds.

Meanwhile, M.Q., who served as the director of a company conducting real estate evaluations since March 7, 2013, incorporated falsified data in a report regarding objects subject to appraisal conducted under a contract with the organization. The actual worth of the property, valued at 67,440,000 AMD, was reported as 139,994,233 AMD in the forged appraisal report, which was then provided to the said organization.

Using this report, N.S. signed an expropriation contract on December 3, 2013, with the organization for public and state needs, selling the specified real estate for 139,923,733 AMD instead of 67,440,000 AMD, thus embezzling 72,448,533 AMD from the state.

On February 6, 2023, the Prosecutor General's Office received the criminal case indictment against N.S. under Article 308, Part 2 (abuse of office resulting in serious consequences) and Article 178, Part 3, Clause 1 (fraud committed by a group of individuals by prior agreement) of the Republic of Armenia's Criminal Code, against S.S. under the same articles, and against S.M. under Article 308, Part 2 and Article 38-178, Part 3, Clause 1 for aiding in the same fraud.

On February 9, 2023, the supervising prosecutor decided to confirm the indictment and submit the criminal case to the Anti-Corruption Court. On the same day, a property claim was filed by the prosecutor for the collection of the 72,448,533 AMD from N.S., S.S., S.M., and M.Q. in favor of the state budget of the Republic of Armenia.