Gazprom Armenia, military unit commander commit large-scale embezzlement Corruption scandal in Yerevan

A commander of one of the military units of the Armenian Armed Forces, as well as a group of military men are accused of fraud and embezzlement on a particularly large scale.

According to the investigation, M.H. through the head of the financial service S.P. agreed with the representative of Gazprom Armenia A.D. to sell the volume of gas unused by the military unit and embezzle part of the funds, Caliber.Az reports with reference to Armenia’s Anti-Corruption Committee.

Between October 2018 and March 2019, on the instructions of M. H., the readings of the gas metre of the military unit were falsified by mechanical intervention. S.P. drew up acts with fake metre readings every month, based on which the Defence Ministry paid for unused gas - a total of 12 million drams ($30,864).

Later A. D. transferred 2 million drams ($5,144) from these funds to the commander of the military unit.

It turned out that M. Kh. used the same scheme to embezzle money for electricity. He made an agreement with the representative of "Electric Networks of Armenia" S. H. - here the damage to the state is estimated at 11 million drams ($28,292).

After S. P. was dismissed from his post in June 2019, the unit commander assigned the illegal actions to the head of the utility service N. V. He continued to falsify data, as a result, the military unit paid 8 million drams ($20,576) more for electricity in 2019-2022.

The unit commander himself received about 4 million drams ($10,288) back from the Electric Networks employee in 2018-2022.

It was also revealed that M. H. received a bribe of $1000 for appointing the wife of the senior accountant to the position of the head of the club of the military unit.

Besides, the investigation revealed cases of embezzlement of more than 8 million drams by the head of the financial service of the unit.

All the mentioned persons were charged.

During the investigation, more than 21 million drams ($54,012) of damage to the state were restored. The property of the accused was seized.