8 Arrested in Gyumri Bribery Case, Including Mayor

Eight individuals have been arrested on charges of receiving bribes in large amounts by a group of officials from the Gyumri community, and for giving bribes to the latter. The Anti-Corruption Committee has announced this. "As a result of large-scale operational-intelligence measures and covert investigative actions undertaken by the operational-intelligence department of the RA Anti-Corruption Committee, factual data have been obtained regarding cases of demanding and receiving bribe money by the head of the Gyumri community and the chief architect, with prior agreement.

Within the framework of the initiated criminal proceedings, decisions have been made to initiate public criminal prosecution against eight individuals, including the head of the community, and to arrest them.

As a result of the measures taken, it was revealed, in particular, that the head of the Gyumri community and the chief architect, having learned that a citizen had built an unauthorized structure of about 1500 m2 at 1/9 Garegin Nzhdeh Street in the Gyumri community, which was subject to demolition, came to a preliminary agreement to enter into a "corrupt" deal with the citizen, promising not to take measures to demolish the built unauthorized structure, and moreover, to prepare forged official documents stating that the building was allegedly demolished and newly built, to legalize it, in exchange for which they demanded a bribe in a large amount of four million RA drams.

In pursuance of their criminal intent, the chief architect, in accordance with a preliminary agreement with the head of the community, with his knowledge, met with the citizen who had built the unauthorized structure on various occasions, having discussions about the details of the process of legalizing the building by the city officials, as well as about the circumstances of transferring the bribe amount in installments according to the "action-amount-action-amount" scheme, thereby presenting a final demand for receiving the bribe and receiving a promise to give it.

In addition, factual data have been obtained in the criminal proceedings that the members of the criminal group, seeking to ensure the secrecy and continuity of their corrupt actions, have purposefully targeted undesirable members of the Gyumri community's council of elders, with the calculation of making them controllable by collecting various information about them and through blackmail.

In addition to the above, during the pre-trial investigation of the criminal proceedings, factual data have been obtained that the head of the community, taking advantage of the opportunity given to him by his position, has practically initiated a process of forging official documents for the purpose of privatizing a land plot actually used by him and on the community's balance sheet under the name of a person involved by him, by creating artificial grounds, and legalizing an unauthorized building belonging to his close relative.

Moreover, factual data have also been obtained in the proceedings about the chief architect receiving bribe money of various amounts from a number of citizens in exchange for committing illegal actions in 6 more cases," the statement of the Anti-Corruption Committee says, adding that large-scale operational-intelligence and evidentiary actions continue to be carried out in the criminal proceedings to fully reveal the structure and operating mechanisms of the corruption scheme, as well as the full circle of persons involved in the criminal network.