Four Detained in Abduction Case of Businessman's Wife

In the framework of a criminal investigation conducted by the Heavy Crimes Division of the Yerevan Investigative Department of the RA Investigative Committee, and as a result of extensive investigative and procedural actions carried out by the investigators, in cooperation with relevant units of the Police and the National Security Service, the case of the abduction of a woman on September 4 has been revealed.

The Investigative Committee reports that, according to factual data obtained during the investigation, a group of individuals, being participants in a criminal organization created for the purpose of committing particularly serious crimes, planned the abduction of the aforementioned woman with profit-driven motives and with the aim of making demands.

One of them, identified as V.I., provided information to the members of the organization regarding the woman, her family members, financial situation, movements, and locations. The group, performing their designated functions as per the criminal organization’s role distribution, prepared from June to September 2024. Specifically, they requested a close associate residing in the Russian Federation to provide a cryptocurrency wallet address for transferring the demanded sum after abducting the woman. They traveled to the Tavush province to inspect a property owned by one of the members of the organization, where the abducted individual was to be kept, and were involved in purchases made for the woman during her captivity to ensure that the required ransom could be received without any hindrance, falsely claiming that a large sum would be transferred from the USA.

On September 4, 2024, four members of the criminal organization, whose identities have yet to be unveiled, pursued the woman in a BMW car with false license plates. On the same day, around 12:00 PM, two of them, dressed in clothing bearing the badge of the National Security Service and masked, approached the woman, who was at the San Marco swimming pool in Yerevan with her relatives. Under the false pretense of taking her to the NSS, they forced her into the aforementioned vehicle against her will and transported her to a facility near a church on the Noyemberyan-Azatamut highway in Tavush province, where member A.M. monitored the woman, who was handcuffed to a bed to prevent her escape.

Subsequently, on September 5, at around 4:20 AM, member A.N. of the criminal organization crossed into Georgia through the Bagratashen border checkpoint, where he acquired Georgian mobile phone numbers. He registered individual accounts on the WhatsApp and Telegram applications, through which he demanded 4,000,000 USD, equivalent to 1,550,520,000 AMD, from the woman's husband in exchange for her release, sending him the obtained Bitcoin cryptocurrency wallet address via WhatsApp.

According to the collected data, on September 7, member A.P. visited the location where the abducted woman was held, delivering food and necessary supplies acquired beforehand by other members of the organization. As a result of operational-investigative measures taken, on the following day, September 8, police officers discovered the abducted woman at the specified facility on the Noyemberyan-Azatamut highway and liberated her.

Four members of the criminal group have also been identified and arrested. Based on sufficient evidence obtained, charges have been brought against these four members under Article 191 (Abduction of a Person) Part 3, Clause 1, and Article 319 (Participation in a Criminal Organization) Part 1 of the RA Criminal Code. The prosecuting body has submitted requests to the court to apply detention as a preventive measure, which have been granted. The pre-trial investigation is ongoing, and efforts are being made to locate and present to the conducting authority another member of the criminal group, whose identity has already been established.