Vardan Ghukasyan and 7 other people were arrested

Eight people have been arrested on charges of receiving large bribes from and giving bribes to a group of officials in the Gyumri community. We are informed about this by the Anti-Corruption Committee.

As a result of large-scale operational-investigation measures and secret investigative actions undertaken by the Anti-Corruption Committee of the Republic of Armenia, factual data was obtained regarding cases of the head of the Gyumri community and the chief architect demanding and receiving bribes with prior consent.

Within the framework of the initiated criminal proceedings, decisions were made to initiate public criminal prosecutions and arrest eight individuals, including the community leader.

As a result of the measures taken, it was revealed, in particular, that the head of the Gyumri community and the chief architect, having learned that a citizen had built an unauthorized building with an area of about 1,500 m2 at 1/9 Garegin Nzhdeh Street in the Gyumri community, which was subject to demolition, came to a preliminary agreement to enter into a "corruption" deal with the citizen, promising not to take any measures to demolish the unauthorized building, moreover, to draw up official false documents stating that the building was demolished and newly built, to legalize it, demanding a large bribe of four million AMD in return.

In order to fulfill their criminal intent, the chief architect, in accordance with a preliminary agreement with the community leader, and with his knowledge, met with the citizen who had built the unauthorized building on various occasions, discussing the details of the process of legalizing the building by city officials, as well as the circumstances of transferring the requested bribe amount in stages, in the form of an “action-money-action-money” scheme, thereby presenting a final demand for a bribe and receiving a promise to pay it.

In addition, factual data was obtained during the criminal proceedings that the members of the criminal group, seeking to ensure the secrecy and continuity of their corrupt activities, purposefully targeted their undesirable members of the Gyumri Community Council, with the aim of collecting various information about them and making them controllable through blackmail.

In addition to the above, during the preliminary investigation of the criminal proceedings, factual data was obtained that the head of the community, taking advantage of the opportunity given to him by virtue of his office, practically initiated a process of falsifying official documents in order to create artificial grounds for the privatization of the land plot actually used by him and on the community balance sheet in the name of the person involved and to legalize the arbitrarily constructed building belonging to his close relative.

Moreover, the proceedings also revealed factual information about the chief architect receiving bribes of various amounts from a number of citizens in exchange for committing illegal actions in 6 more cases.

Large-scale operational-investigative and evidentiary actions continue to be carried out in criminal proceedings to fully reveal the structure and operating mechanisms of the corruption scheme, as well as the full range of individuals involved in the criminal network.