Prosecutor's Office of Armenia Accuses Former Head of Serzh Sargsyan's Security Department

| News, Armenia

According to the Prosecutor's Office of Armenia, Vachagan Ghazaryan, the former head of ex-president Serzh Sargsyan's Security Department, his wife, and the director of the "Yans" restaurant complex that they controlled have all been charged with extortion, namely large-scale extortion with threats of violence.

He laid up the three defendants' offenses. They were subject to the absence ban as a preventative precaution. According to the allegations, Vachagan Ghazaryan and his wife decided to demand extortion from the accountant by using threats of violence and received a huge sum of EUR 97,000 in June 2017 after the director of "Yans" was informed by the employees that the complex's chief accountant did not deposit certain amounts received from customers into the restaurant's cash register.

"To carry out the criminal intention, during the same period, the director, to extort Vachagan Ghazaryan and his wife, to extort a particularly large amount of money, mentioning the fact that Ghazaryan was the head of the security of the third president of Armenia, demanded 40 million drams [EUR 97,000], and threatened the life and health of the accountant and his son. As a result of the demand combined with threats of violence, the accountant was forced to pledge his gold jewelry, borrow money from relatives, sell his apartment, and during the months of June-September 2017, he transferred the requested total of 40 million drams to them through relatives," the Prosecutor's Office informed.

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