An Armenian law-enforcement agency has moved to arrest the top manager of Gagik Tsarukian’s businesses after accusing him of fraud and tax evasion.
The accusations do not relate to any of the several dozen firms making up Tsarukian’s Multi Group and stem from separate economic activities of the holding company’s chief executive, Sedrak Arustamian.
The Investigative Committee claimed late on Wednesday that Arustamian helped Sinohydro Corporation, a Chinese construction company building a 56-kilometer highway in northwestern Armenia, evade 240 million drams ($503,000) in taxes. It said Sinohydro paid an Armenian firm owned by Arustamian and run by two other men 1.17 billion drams in fictitious consulting frees as part of the scam.
Both men were also indicted. One of them, Gurgen Sargsian, had served as Armenia’s transport minister from 2008-2010.
“Through his employees Sedrak Arustamian helped Chinese company executives to avoid paying a large amount of taxes,” a senior Investigative Committee official, Kamo Sahakian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service on Thursday. He confirmed that the committee has asked an Armenian court to remand the three suspects in custody pending investigation.
Arustamian and his daughter Nora, who is a parliament deputy from Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), could not be reached for comment. A senior BHK representative, Naira Zohrabian, said the opposition party will not comment on the criminal proceedings for now.
The accusations against Tsarukian’s right-hand man are part of an ongoing extensive investigation into serious financial abuses allegedly committed during the implementation of a multimillion-dollar project to rebuild Armenia’s key highways. They raised to 15 the total number of persons indicted in the probe.
According to Sahakian, five of them are currently on the run. Those include the executive director of the Spanish company Corsan Corviam Construccion which was contracted by the former Armenian government in 2012 to upgrade more than 90 kilometers of roads.
The first two reconstructed highways connecting Yerevan to the towns of Ararat and Ashtarak were inaugurated in late 2015. Corsan never rebuilt the remaining 40-kilometer-long road covered by the $250 million contract.
The Investigative Committee claimed earlier this month that Corsan’s Armenian subcontractors were chosen not by the Spanish firm but former President Serzh Sarkisian’s brother Levon. It said the latter arranged those contracts in return for hefty kickbacks from the subcontractors.
Levon Sarkisian, who fled Armenia last year, was charged with bribery and money laundering as a result. He denied the accusations through a lawyer.