Hetq-online reported earlier that police officers in Vanadzor were involved in trafficking in women (Trafficking in Armenian women). In some cases the police officers themselves were backing the procurers. Since our reports, the Police Department has initiated an internal investigation into the Vanadzor police. And as we were informed by the Office of the Prosecutor General of Armenia, Senior Lieutenant Gagik Gevorgyan, a platoon chief for the Vanadzor Police department, has been arrested. It was Gevorgyan who had been seeing off and greeting the procurers and their victims at the Yerevan airport. On March 10, 2004, Amalia Mnatsakanyan, nicknamed Nano, who was arrested as a result of a joint action by police officers from Armenia and the United Arab Emirates, was transferred to Armenia. She is considered by the law enforcement officers to be the "mother pimp", or madame, as the most experienced procurer.

Nano had twice done jail time for trafficking in women, and had been sought by the police since 2002. We wrote about another procurer from Vanadzor, Armine Simonyan. After working for Nano as a prostitute, Armine became a madame herself, and engaged in recruiting women from Vanadzor and taking them to the United Arab Emirates. Armine Simonyan is now being sought by the police as well, and her brother, Artak Simonyan, has been arrested, charged with aiding and abetting trafficking in women. Officers continue to question women who fell victim to these two procurers. The number of Amalia Mnatsakanyan's victims keeps growing. But the trafficking in women for the United Arab Emirates continues.

Hetq