Armenia’s State Oversight Service said it has filed a crime report with the General Prosecutor’s Office over the alienation of land plots in the Arinj community and the registration of ownership rights tied to those transactions. The statement was published on the agency’s Facebook page.
The service said it reviewed whether state bodies acted lawfully and reasonably in selling plots that were not eligible for alienation, and in subsequent steps that reduced their cadastral value by changing the land-use designation.
According to the agency, a 16.17-hectare plot within the administrative boundaries of Arinj in Kotayk region was encumbered by engineering infrastructure — a 700 mm trunk gas pipeline — and therefore could not be alienated. Despite that, the land was sold at auction to Aviservice, a company owned by Gagik Tsarukyan. The service says the sale caused substantial harm to the lawful interests of the state.
The watchdog also reported other violations in the management, use and disposal of land resources in Arinj. It said that in 2017, based on the conclusion of the interagency Commission for Coordinating Temporary Land-Use Schemes, the community carried out a large-scale reclassification of land. Industrial and other production-designated land totaling 11.2 hectares, settlement land totaling 36.29 hectares, and other valuable land totaling 28.96 hectares, with a combined cadastral value of more than 8 billion 38 million drams, were shifted into the category of agricultural land — pasture — with a value of only 5 million 160 thousand drams. As a result, the cadastral value of the assets fell by 8 billion 32 million drams, or about 99.94%.
The service further alleges that, despite a legal requirement that a single lot offered for alienation cannot exceed 20 hectares, the community head still put those lands up for auction. They were eventually sold for 21.5 million drams to another Tsarukyan-linked company, the Multi Group concern.
It also says the transactions could not be state-registered because of those legal restrictions. Instead of holding new auctions, responsible officials allegedly altered the contents of auction protocols that had already been approved, as well as the effective decisions of the community head. Based on what the service describes as presumably forged documents, four real-estate sale contracts from auction were then signed, allowing state registration of the rights and transfer of the property to a company owned by Tsarukyan.
The agency said crime reports have been submitted over the identified facts and criminal proceedings have been initiated.
The report also recalls that on July 6, Prosperous Armenia party leader and businessman Gagik Tsarukyan was detained and taken to Armenia’s Investigative Committee. He is accused of organizing fraud on an especially large scale and money laundering. Investigators say that in 2022-2024, a group operating under his leadership, under the pretext of developing trade and economic ties between Armenia and Iran, created joint legal entities involving Iranian citizens and carried out a fraudulent scheme that caused more than $21 million in damage. Tsarukyan also faces a separate charge related to illegal hunting.
On July 7, a court approved prosecutors’ request to place Tsarukyan in pre-trial detention for two months, and on September 4 that detention was extended by another two months. As part of the same case, law enforcement officers searched more than 70 addresses linked to Tsarukyan on July 6, after which the doors of all enterprises were sealed. Some of them, the report says, were nationalized by the state.
