Just a couple of days before the May 12 parliamentary elections, Armenian police proudly indicated that they had uncovered a case of money-laundering. The “money-launderers”, according to the RA National Security Service, are in this case former RA Foreign Minister Alexander Arzumanyan and former Deputy Minister of Defense Vahan Shirkhanyan, who had flown to Moscow at the end of April and had returned in the same plane.
Armenian police had found out that they had gone to “launder money”. On May 7, the National Security Service had dispersed an announcement in which it was said that Arzumanyan and Shirkhanyan had come to an agreement with Russian citizen Levon Marcos [Marcos has been under investigation for “financial fraud since 2005” and for “having ambitions and plans to reach them during the pre-election campaign in Armenia”] to “organize the transfer and legalization of the suspicious financial sums”. On May 5, 55,400 dollars was found during the search of Alexander Arzumanyan’s apartment. After all of this, Moscow-based businessman Sashik Aghazaryan announced that he had sent the money to Arzumanyan. Nearly three weeks ago, the National Security Service dispersed an announcement according to which a group of investigators had been commissioned to Moscow to find out who sent the money to Arzumanyan, the source, and the motives behind it. It turned out that they had sentenced the former foreign minister to jail for “money-laundering” without knowing the incentives for the transfer of that money. Besides that, in the announcement regarding this case dispersed by the National Security Service, it seems as though the name of the owner of the “suspicious sum of money” was mentioned [Levon Marcos]. In other words, there is some contradiction between the two above-mentioned announcements of the National Security Service. In the first one, it was stated that Arzumanyan and Shirkhanyan had “laundered” Marcos’s money, and in the second announcement we are informed that a group of investigators was sent to Moscow to find out who sent what money to Arzumanyan.
In any case, it seems as though the names of Shirkhanyan and Marcos are not in the center of attention in this case. Armenian police no longer talk about the fact that Shirkhanyan has also “laundered money with Arzumanyan” and “has laundered” Marcos’s money; instead they have started to get mixed up in their announcements and the revealed “facts”, and it is hard to say who is laundering what in this case. It turns out that two of the Police of Armenia have been in Moscow and have questioned Sashik Aghazaryan and others. Recently “Arminfo”, making a reference to its sources in Moscow, informed about the “revelations” of the above-mentioned people commissioned to Moscow. On Wednesday, the Prosecutor General’s office correspondents revealed the “revelations” of the mentioned people. According to that, the RA Prosecutor General’s office has informed lragir.am that there are new facts regarding the money-laundering case of former foreign minister Alexander Arzumanyan. Particularly, the RA Prosecutor General’s office had appealed to the Russian Prosecutor General’s office for legal advice and has sent two representatives of the investigative bodies to Moscow with the consent of the Russian side. Russian citizen Sashik Aghazaryan has been questioned. Let us recall that after the arrest of former RA Foreign Minister, Aghazaryan had announced that he had sent money to Arzumanyan. According to the RA Prosecutor General’s office, Aghazaryan had informed during the investigation that with the request of Arzumanyan he had sent 178,200 dollars under the name of nine different people, who each sent 19,800 dollars. The names of those people, according to Aghazaryan, were given by Arzumanyan. Why did Arzumanyan choose to do things this way? Aghazaryan doesn’t know. According to the prosecutor general’s office prosecutors, it was done with the purpose of covering up the flow of money. The prosecutor’s office informs that “any written document that would prove that the transfers had been made by Sashik Aghazaryan has not been found.” The prosecutors have found out that the money was transferred from the Russian Trade Financing Bank to the Armenian “Converse” bank. It is also informed that nine people, under whose names money was transferred, have been questioned. According to the RA Prosecutor General’s office correspondents, eight of the nine people have said that they have nothing to do with the transferred money, that they haven’t transferred such money, and don’t know the people under whose names the money has been transferred to Yerevan. The Prosecutor General’s office has also informed lragir.am that during the investigation Aghazaryan had also said that he doesn’t know Vahan Shirkhanyan and has not transferred any money to him.