Armenian investigators reveal money laundering scheme totaling 190 mln. Drams

YEREVAN, September 11. /ARKA/. Armenia's Investigative Committee has uncovered a money laundering scheme that was used to steal 190.7 million drams.

The law-enforcers managed to identify only one person of a group of fraudsters - a 33-year-old resident of Yerevan.

According to the investigators, a group of persons, under unclear circumstances, stole over 190 million drams from foreign card accounts located in the United Arab Emirates (5 banks), Qatar (3 banks), and Australia (1 bank).

Then, in order to launder these funds, they transferred the stolen money to the single tax account of state payments, ostensibly to pay taxes for several enterprises. They used the money to conduct as many as 306 transactions.

Eight individual entrepreneurs and one LLC are involved in the case. A 33-year-old resident of Yerevan provided a channel for laundering the stolen funds. Almost all the entities, into whose accounts the funds were transferred, were in one way or another interconnected with him.

The transactions were carried out through a payment system operated by a local bank. After some time, the bank received complaints from abroad - from account holders who had been victims of the fraud. Out of the 190.7 million drams, the bank returned 59.3 million drams. The remaining 131.5 million drams initially remained on the tax account, but nevertheless, the fraudster managed to withdraw about 115.6 million drams.

The Yerevan resident was charged with money laundering. He was arrested and later released on 3 million dram bail. His property was seized by the court. The case was referred to the supervisory body for further referral to the court ($1 - 385.66 drams). -0-