Preliminary investigation of the criminal case initiated on swindling in particularly large amount in creation process of videoconference of operative management center of the RA Armed Forces was completed in General Military Investigative Department of the RA Investigative Committee.

According to the original documents obtained in the result of cooperation between the RA Investigative Committee and the law enforcement bodies of several other countries, during the acquisition of equipment for the creation of the mentioned system exaggerated prices had been submitted, false information had been involved in the invoices. As a result, according to initial data about 455 thousand USD was swindled.

On August 21, 2015 the LLC “AR-ICT” signed the contract N ԲԸԱՀԱՊՊՁԲ-1-3 with the RA Ministry of Defense on acquisition of necessary equipment for the videoconference system of operative management and situation control center of the Armed Forces. The cost of the contract was 485.831.139 AMD.

In the result of investigatory actions conducted during preliminary investigation it was found that before signing the contract with the RA Ministry of Defense the director of the mentioned company had participated in the negotiation process. Considering that there is not a similar system in the Republic of Armenia and the tasks for the creation of the system are hard and huge requiring application of new information technology and there would be necessity to acquire equipments of different types and quantity from a number of countries, which are not available in the Armenian market, under such circumstances the appropriate officials of the RA Ministry of Defense would not have an opportunity to study the submitted bid and compare it with market costs, besides the goods acquired from abroad would be addressed in the name of the RA Ministry of Defense and they would not be reported, exaggerated prices different from their real costs had been submitted in the bid of goods acquired from abroad. 

Necessary investigatory actions of huge volume were conducted to check the grounded suspects on abuse. It was found that the necessary equipments had been acquired from different countries. In order to provide the comprehensive, complete and objective investigation of the criminal case motions on legal aid were sent to the law enforcement bodies of some countries.

In the result of cooperation actual data on the costs of the contracts of the LLC “AR-ICT” on acquiring equipment from different countries were received from the USA and Georgia, the mechanism of swindling was found.

According to the results of preliminary investigation, goods corresponding to technical data of the contract were obtained to conceal the swindling but documents containing false information were formed by the director of the mentioned company. The entire amount of tax liabilities provided by the contract was paid, the stolen money was formulated in the accounting records of the company as creditors.

On the base of the obtained evidence on October 28, 2015 a decision was made to change the volume of the charge of the director of the LLC “AR-ICT” A. Sargsyan who had been involved as a defendant in 2014 in the framework of the criminal case. He was charged with stealing 186.136.612 million AMD equal to 454.916,65 USD from the RA Ministry of Defense according to the Point 1 of the Part 3 of the Article 178 of RA Criminal Code. The latter is in pretrial detention.

Additional information on the results of the investigation shall not be published at this stage of preliminary investigation.

Note; Everyone charged with alleged crime offence shall be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law.