28 Individuals Ordered to Work, Yet They Did Not Attend; Over 53 Million Drams Embezzled

The Investigation Department of the National Security Service of Armenia has launched a criminal case under Article 179, Part 3, Clause 1, and Article 325, Part 2 of the Criminal Code of Armenia on August 11, 2020. The preliminary investigation has been carried out by the Serious Crimes Investigation Division of the Investigative Committee of the Republic of Armenia in Yerevan, uncovering significant details of official offenses at the National Metrology Institute.

It was revealed that from 2010 to 2018, individuals who held leadership positions at the National Metrology Institute, utilizing their organizational and managerial authority, conspired with a group of individuals to issue orders for a total of 28 people in various positions. Despite being fully aware that these individuals were not attending work and failing to fulfill their job responsibilities, they created, approved, and validated false official documents, including fake job time reports and other documents that served as the basis for salary payments, containing blatantly false information regarding the employees' attendance and performance of duties.

By circulating these forged documents, they submitted them for payment. Consequently, a total of 53,427,789 Armenian drams were unlawfully embezzled from the state budget in the names of these employees, under the guise of baseless payments and for profit-driven motivations. As a result of the investigation, the entire embezzled amount has been fully restored. Criminal charges have been initiated against two individuals within the scope of the criminal proceedings. The investigation is ongoing.