Police today arrested eleven individuals, including Yerevan Deputy Mayor Gevorg Simonyan, in a case involving the embezzlement of 119 million AMD (US$307,000) from a state-financed Covid-19 treatment program.

The arrests followed a search of Simonyan’s office by Anti-Corruption Committee (ACC) officials.

The ACC, in a statement, says while serving as Deputy Minister of Health (2020-2022), Simonyan was tasked with disbursing the funds from the government’s 26 billion AMD Covid-19 treatment project and monitoring those health centers providing patient care.

The ACC says the founding director of one such center, Medline Clinic, falsified the medical records of hundreds of patients and then submitted the false reports to the Ministry of Health to receive funding.

Simonyan is charged with dereliction of his duties in not reporting the financial irregularities due to his past cozy relationship with the Medline Clinic director.