ArmInfo.Former Chairman of the State Revenue Committee and former Minister of Finance of Armenia Gagik Khachatryan has been detained. This was reported by the press service of the National Security Service (NSS) of the Republic of Armenia.
According to the source, the detention was carried out based on factual data obtained as a result of lengthy and large-scale operational-search measures as part of a criminal case initiated in the Investigative Department of the NSS on February 2, 2019. On August 27th, searches were conducted in the mansions and apartments of the former Minister of Finance and his affiliates.
On the same day after the searches were completed, Gagik Khachatryan and Karen Khachatryan (former head of the Internal Security Directorate of the SRC of the Republic of Armenia) were brought to the Investigative Department of the NSS on suspicion of committing crimes related to abuse of authority, which entailed, through negligence, serious consequences. He is also charged with misappropriation and embezzlement of public funds on an especially large scale.
A day earlier, the head of the NSS, Artur Vanetsyan, reported that tens of millions of dollars were appropriated in the fact of embezzlement of funds. At the same time, as noted by Artur Vanetsyan, the initiated criminal case has nothing to do with the sons of Khachatryan. "At the moment we are not taking any actions with respect to his sons. At the moment, we have no grounds and evidence regarding them'', the head of the National Security Service emphasized.
According to the Armenian media, the family of Gagik Khachatryan, who held government posts throughout his life, owns Galaxy group of companies, which includes the telecommunications company Ucom, Yerevan Mall shops, Chronograph, Mega Toys, Pandora, Mega Food and others. In this criminal case, 800 million drams were returned to the state budget.
ArmInfo.Former Minister of Finance of Armenia Gagik Khachatryan is at the National Security Service at the moment; in the closest time he will be detained on charges of embezzlement on an especially large scale and abuse of office. The NSS Director Arthur Vanetsyan informed journalists about this.
ArmInfo.Armenian police detained the former chief tax officer of Armenia, the so-called "super-minister", one of the richest people in the country, Gagik Khachatryan.