Dubai Homes of Armenian Officials: Still No Criminal Charges for Money Laundering, Undeclared Assets

Armenia’s Prosecutor General’s Office has informed Hetq that the criminal investigation initiated based on our investigations into former and current Armenian officials who acquired property in Dubai is ongoing.

In 2018 and 2023, Hetq wrote about real estate acquired by several former and current Armenian officials in luxury complexes in Dubai.

Following our first investigation published in November 2018, a criminal case was initiated in February 2020, the preliminary investigation of which was conducted by the Special Investigation Service (SIS). (The Anti-Corruption Committee is now overseeing the criminal proceedings).

Initially, the focus of the criminal case was former Prosperous Armenia Party MP Hrant Davtyan and his son, but the case concerned their failure to declare their Armenian property, since Davtyan had declared the Arab property mentioned in our article.

In September 2020, the state investigator opened a new criminal case against another official mentioned in our investigation, Babken Sedrakyan, a former high-ranking police officer and acting director general of the Yerevan Metro since 2022, who is also the honorary consul general of Kyrgyzstan in Armenia. This criminal case also concerns the failure to declare property, but the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO), based on the secrecy of the preliminary investigation, did not elaborate on what specific property Sedrakyan did not declare, and whether this also concerns his Arab house.

The SIS investigator in 2020 merged the criminal case against Sedrakyan with the Davtyan case, but in April 2021, the latter’s part was separated and sent to court after the prosecutor confirmed the charges, where, however, as we have already written, it was dismissed in August 2024, since the statute of limitations had expired.

Meanwhile, the ongoing criminal proceedings against Sedrakyan were later merged with another proceeding being investigated by the Anti-Corruption Committee, which is based on Hetq’s second investigation into the Arab assets of Armenian officials.

Our material published in April 2023 was sent by the PGO to the Investigative Committee, where in May 2023 criminal proceedings were initiated under Article 296, Part 3, Clause 3 of the Criminal Code, namely, money laundering, which was committed in particularly large amounts (exceeding 10 million drams) and is punishable by six-twelve years imprisonment.

Thus, the episode of failure to declare property was not initially in the criminal proceedings. However, during the preliminary investigation, the investigator of the Criminal Committee initiated new criminal proceedings under Article 444, Part 2 of the Criminal Code. It concerns failure to declare property or income or expenses in substantial amounts (exceeding AMD 1 million), which is punishable by 3-6 years of imprisonment.

The proceedings for failure to declare property were merged into the proceedings for money laundering in the Investigative Committee. The proceedings regarding Babken Sedrakyan have also been added to this. It should be noted that the latter is based on Part 2 of Article 314.3 of the Criminal Code adopted in 2003, on failure to declare substantial amounts of property. It imposes a two-year prison sentence and may also restrict the individual from holding certain positions or engaging in specific activities for up to three years, or possibly without such restrictions.

The above-mentioned general proceedings were sent from the Investigative Committee to the Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC), in accordance with the rules of investigative subordination.

Eduard Tsarukyan, an investigator for especially important cases of the Department for the Investigation of Corruption-Related Crimes Against the Interests of the Public Service of the ACC, in response to a request from Hetq, refused to provide information about the preliminary investigation into these proceedings, referring to the data of the proceedings that are not subject to publication, the publication of which, according to the investigator, could hinder the normal course of the proceedings.

However, Hetq also sent inquiries to the CPA, the answers to which could not in any way hinder the proceedings, in particular, how long the preliminary investigation is, whether it is continuing under the same articles of the Criminal Code under which it was initiated, or whether there have been changes, or whether there are persons subject to criminal prosecution within the framework of the proceedings, how many there are, what charges have been brought against them, and what preventive measures have been chosen.

Having not received answers to these questions, we sent a similar inquiry to the Prosecutor General’s Office. The PGO responded that the preliminary investigation is continuing under the same articles of the Criminal Code, and now there is no person with the procedural status of an defendant in the criminal proceedings.

Photo: Dubai panorama (Nelemson Guevarra, unsplash.com)