One month ago the Central Bank of Armenia organized a press conference concerning the CB’s financial monitoring policy.
The goal of the press conference was to proudly announce that the international organizations had observed improvement in relation to struggling against money laundering in Armenia, we were in the 10th place among the 25 countries monitored by the European Union, and the situation in Armenia was better than in Russia, Czech, Romania, Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Certainly the information they provided, according to which during the past 4 years the corresponding institutions have found cases of money laundering totaling 40 million, is very suspicious. It is really hard to believe that during four years in our country only $100k was laundered. The reason is clear because the high level of corruption and shady economy is a good spot for money laundering.
“Armenia is not a big financial center; it does not have offshore banks and non-financial institutions. Thus, factors such as high level of unemployment, low salaries, corruption, shady economy and high level of organized crime are increasing the risks for money laundering and vulnerability. Shady economy mainly results in failure to pay taxes. However, the methods used for not paying taxes are almost the same as the ones for money laundering, and such methods are the following: falsification of invoices for imported products, double accounting and transactions through banking systems.” This opinion was spoken by representatives of the US Department of State in 2005, but now no one can assure that the mentioned factors of risk don’t exist in Armenia. By the way, the authors of the report of the Department of State mentioned on purpose that there were around 30 casinos in the suburbs of Yerevan. It is worth mentioning that casino business is considered one of the easiest ways to launder money. One does not have to show a passport when gambling and the money deposited with the casino budget becomes legal. One can make an arrangement with the owner of the casino to organize a fake winning notification and get a part of the money back.
Several years ago the minister of economy Davit Avetisyan said that the easiest methods of money laundering in Armenia would be lotteries and casinos as banks were controlled and the risks were low in banks.
Daniel Azaryan did not discuss the issue of casinos and said that most of the money laundering attempts were connected with plastic cards. For example, a foreigner would come to Armenia, make falsifications with plastic cards and try to hide the money or change with property. He says the first case they discovered concerned forest cutting, but it is funny because it is about one million dram.
In about one month after the mentioned press conference MP Viktor Dallakyan announced that high rank officials were laundering money. He did not say any names, and the prime minister referred to the publications in the media and ordered to investigate the issue. The one in charge of looking into this issue is the center for financial monitoring. Shortly they gave an answer reading that they have not found any information witnessing about Armenian high rank officials’ involvement in money laundering in the information provided by the people in charge of submitting reports in the manner established by the law, as well as foreign financial investigation institutions. They have not found any information about money laundering on part of Armenian officials in the international respective database either. It is nromal that they did not find any information abotu money laudnering, but this institution’s one and half page report mainly covers introduction information about the institution itself and of course some information on how the international organizations praised their activities. It seems Dallakyan’s announcement was a good reason to remind about this isntitution and praise it.
Maybe they really don’t launder in Armenia; it is quite possible and can be explained why. The Armenian rich people simply don’t need to do it at all. One can buy anything in Armenia with black money; they can buy cars, houses, jewellery, etc. Dirty money are not less profitable in Armenia and they don’t need to launder it at all.