Police interested in diaspora Armenian’s business dealings

The business activities of Hratch Gabrielian, a U.S. citizen who owns a 44% of Artsakh Bank and is president of the Ararat football club, have appeared on the radar screen of RA law enforcement.

Late last year, the Central Investigative Department of the RA Police launched a criminal case of “large-scale fraud”, but so far no one has been indicted. Perhaps this is because Gabrielian is not in Armenia at the moment.

Mr. Gabrielian had promised to make significant investments in Armenia and Artsakh, and assumed the legal responsibility to do so. Over the years, however, he hasn’t come through on those promises.

One glaring example of this failure is the Dzoraghbyur training center for the Ararat team. Mr. Gabrielian had assumed the responsibility for investing millions to bring the place up to international standards.

According to Hetq information, Armenian law enforcement became suspicious that something was fishy after one of Mr. Gabrielian’s concerns, Itarko Construction, underwent a financial audit.

Mr. Gabrielian has his hand in many commercial concerns; from jewellery to construction.

The audit sending up red flags showed that funds being passed off to the government as investments were actually being used as debt funds.

For example, the jewellery firm would place a construction order for $1 million. The transaction would be reported as an investment made by Gabrielian. Then, that investment, or more properly, the debt, would be returned to the same jeweller, for the ordered construction work. As a result, the government would be swindled.

The audit of Itarko Construction was launched by Narineh Nalbandyan, one of the shareholders. She is the wife of Prosperous Armenia Party MP Aragatz Akhoyan, who served as the company’s executive director till 2004. A year later he unexpectedly gifted his 20% share to Hratch Gabrielian.

Narineh Nalbandyan, arguing that the 20% share was “common property” and that her husband had no right to hand it over without her consent, went to the courts and got it back.

The parties to the case have been filing suits and countersuits in the courts over the years.

Also drawn into the legal brouhaha have been MP Akhoyan’s brother and his wife.

The case has wound up in the Arabkir and Kanaker-Zeytoun Administrative Court. However, last December Judge Saribek Aramyan postponed the case, “until a final decision in the criminal case against Hratch Gabrielian is handed down”.