Armenia’s Prosecutor General’s Office (PGO) wants to seize some twenty billion drams (US$51.6M) worth of assets from Vardan Ayvazyan who served as the country’s Minister of Environmental Protection from 2001-2007.

The PGO claims the assets, cash and property, were obtained through “illegal sources”.

On September 5, 2008, the New York base International Court of Arbitration, attached to the International Chamber of commerce, named Ayvazyan, then serving as President of the National Assembly’s Economic Affairs Committee, as a defendant in a case involving the issuance of mining exploration licenses to his relatives and close associates.

(See: Unraveling the Offshore Web: British-Georgian Investors and Their Armenian Partners Target Armenia’s Mines)