A&R tour director charged for  fraud

ArmInfo. The Investigative Committee of Armenia continues the preliminary investigation in the case of fraud against the director of A&R tour travel agency.   According to the press service of the UK, the director of the travel  agency has been charged. Earlier, according to media reports, it  became known that due to the cancellation of the Hurghada-Yerevan  flight, the OTF3703 number in Egypt left about 100 Armenian citizens.

Based on these publications, it was found that the A&R tour travel  agency, from the beginning of 2019 to July, organized tourist  vacations of Armenian citizens in the cities of Egypt - Hurghada and  Sharm El Sheikh, and even sent some of them to these resorts. In the  course of investigative actions in the framework of this criminal  case, the mechanism of fraud operating in this company was  established.

It was found that the director of the travel agency published on  social networks announcements that the company will organize tourist  vacations in the cities of Hurghada and Sharm El Sheikh from the  summer of 2019. At the same time, the charter package and rest in  hotels of Egypt were allegedly included in the price of the tour  package. In order to purchase permits, a huge number of citizens  turned to the agency and paid considerable amounts for their  vacation. Meanwhile, as it turned out, charter flights to Hurghada  and Sharm el-Sheikh were canceled from July 23, as a result of which  the vacation of citizens in Egypt was interrupted.

According to the investigation, during this period of time, a number  of AMD 30.616.995 were stolen from a number of citizens who applied  to the agency. The director of the travel agency was charged with  fraud, as a preventive measure in respect of the latter, a  recognizance not to leave was chosen.

It should be noted that passengers of the Hurghada-Yerevan flight  OTF3703, who were supposed to fly to Yerevan on July 25, were stuck  in Egypt due to dishonesty of the tour operator. As it became known,  the Armenian tourists who purchased tickets from the A&R tour company  could not fly out of Hurghada due to the cancellation of the flight.  About 100 people spent the whole day either at the airport or in  hotels and could not fly back. In total, about 400 Armenian tourists  suffered from the actions of the travel agency, including also those  who had not yet flown to Egypt, and those who could not return home.  The Armenian government organized two flights to Egypt in order to  return tourists stuck there home.