Data containing characteristics of founding, managing, and participating in a criminal organization were revealed within the criminal proceeding being investigated at the Investigative Division of Grave Crimes of Yerevan City Investigative Department of the RA Investigative Committee regarding the case of particularly large-scale extortion, contempt of court and other apparent criminal acts by Leaders of the “Public Voice” party Vardan Ghukasyan, known by the nickname “Dog”, and Artak Galstyan.

In particular, for the purpose of obtaining property funds or rights to property by threatening to publish defamatory information about individuals and organizations, harming their rights and legal interests, extorting money from individuals by fraud, and putting criminally acquired funds into legal circulation, in mid-2021, V.Ghukasyan and A.Galstyan founded and managed a criminal organization that pursued extremely large-scale criminal goals and was distinguished by its systematic and structurally stable profile. Ten persons identified by the investigation for the given moment were engaged in the activity of the latter, with a clear distribution of functions between them. The RA Investigative Committee has recently informed about the criminal acts that most of them are guilty of.

At the current stage of the investigation, 4 episodes of particularly large-scale extortion from a number of individuals have already been revealed, with the amounts demanded from these individuals through blackmail amounting to AMD or property equivalent to 500,000 US dollars.

The analysis of the criminal scheme used in the said cases proves that in order to form an audience on various social platforms and to use the public opinion of the aforementioned audience as a factor in the implementation of his threats, V. Ghukasyan created a number of accounts on online social platforms, the management of which was also handled by the members of the criminal group who assumed the given function.

In order to gain an opportunity to influence on the making of serious social and political decisions, to establish control over the activities of state bodies, on the instruction of V. Ghukasyan, the members of the criminal organization skilled in computer technology, management of social network accounts, extortion software and computer editing, collected and processed information and materials regarding various individuals, including the heads of law enforcement bodies, judges, which were transferred to V. Ghukasyan.

Based on them, the latter targeted particular individuals and organizations, state bodies, including the law enforcement system, the persons performing service for them through the broadcasts on the mentioned user accounts, with blatant disregard of moral norms, using profanity, obscene expressions, and publishing defamatory information, with the aim to force latter to refrain from fulfilling their legal official duties in order to reveal the cases of crimes committed by the criminal organization, and in this way ensure the “immunity” of the members of the criminal organization.

With the same purpose and described mechanism, with extremely obscene speech and defamatory information, also with the purpose of exerting influence on the adoption of potentially undesirable judicial acts against his supporters, V. Ghukasyan also targeted the judges of a number of instances who had satisfied the motions regarding to choose detention as a pretrial measure or the extension of the detention period of the persons as accused in the criminal proceeding who are the members of the criminal group.

The “Public Voice” party, as well as the “Public Voice” taxi service and the same-named depository (security) service, carrying out certain charity actions were used to disguise the goals pursued by the criminal organization, as an opportunity to influence social, political or economic decisions for the benefit of the organization.

Moreover, in order to facilitate the activities of the criminal organization, to avoid “problems” with law enforcement agencies, lawyers were recruited by A. Galstyan. Its real purpose was to conceal or distort the criminal origin of the property and material funds obtained through extortion and fraud as a result of the activity of a criminal organization under the guise of legal services.

Individual members of the criminal organization have built personal relationships with law enforcement or other government officials, using them to obtain the necessary information arising from the goals of the criminal group, for example, non-public information, direct identification information of individuals, as well as information about the investigator conducting the proceeding, and his family members.

The criminal organization ensured its stability through the creation and operation of internal functional “units”, as well as through the circulation of significant funds, still to be ascertained from the point of view of legality. The family member of one of the heads of the criminal organization actually fulfilled the role of the organization’s treasurer, keeping the property and funds acquired as a result of the activities of the criminal organization in a safe deposit box opened in his/her name, ensuring the security and confidentiality of the financial movement of the criminal organization. The distribution and management of financial resources was carried out under the instructions of the leaders of the criminal organization.

During the investigation, preliminary data were also obtained regarding the commission of treason by one of the members of the criminal group. In order to make the materials subject of the investigation, according to the jurisdiction, they were sent to another preliminary investigative body.

In general, in the course of the large-scale investigation, data were obtained regarding more than dozen cases of the crimes obviously committed by the criminal organization, its members, including extortion, fraud, money laundering, disrespecting the courts which are the subject of authentication within the framework of criminal proceeding.

Taking into account that the obtained data apparently contain characteristics of founding, managing and participating in a criminal organization, criminal proceeding has been initiated at the Investigative Division of Grave Crimes of Yerevan City Investigative Department of the RA Investigative Committee under Articles 318 (1) and Article 319 (1) of the RA Criminal Code. A preliminary investigation is being carried out. 

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