Senior Official Arrested for Stealing $590,000 from Armenia’s Investigative Committee

A senior official from Armenia’s Investigative Committee was arrested Thursday on charges of brazenly stealing $590,000 in cash that was keep in a safe at a law enforcement building in Yerevan.

The sum presumably was confiscated from other criminal suspects and kept in a safe at the Investigative Committee’s division that deals with smuggling, customs and other financial crimes.

The Pastinfo.am news agency was the first to report on the matter, citing anonymous sources.

The fireproof safe where the money was being kept was located on the sixth floor of the building located on Tegharan Street in Yerevan, according to Pastinfo.

The news site reported that suspect is believed to have entered the building with a fake investigator’s identification on Tuesday, emptied the safe and left the building the following day.

“He stayed in the building for about 16 hours and took his time stealing the money,” Pastinfo reported.

The investigation of theft has moved to another law-enforcement body—Armenia’s Anti-Corruption Committee.

The Anti-Corruption Committee announced the arrest late Thursday in a social media post and claimed to be carrying out carrying out “large-scale operational-investigative and evidentiary actions.”

While the name of the official arrested for the crime has not been publicized, news reports on Friday suggested that it was Gor Tadevosyan, the acting head of the a division of the Investigative Committee.

It was unclear what the person exactly is suspected or accused of, since the investigator have not identified the thief, nor have they recovered the money, which was being guarded by a private security firm, known as King Marshall.

Neither the Investigative Committee nor the Anti-Corruption Committee have commented on the details and did not respond to inquiries by Pastinfo.