Gyumri Municipality to go on strike tomorrow, said Gyumri Deputy Mayor Avetis Arakelyan.
Let us remind you that as a result of large-scale operational-investigation measures and secret investigative actions undertaken by the Anti-Corruption Committee of the Republic of Armenia, factual data was obtained on cases of the head of the Gyumri community and the chief architect demanding and receiving bribes with prior consent.
Within the framework of the initiated criminal proceedings, decisions were made to initiate public criminal prosecutions and arrests against eight persons, including the head of the community.
As a result of the measures taken, it was revealed, in particular, that the head of the Gyumri community and the chief architect, having learned that a citizen had built an unauthorized building with an area of about 1,500 m2 at 1/9 Garegin Nzhdeh Street in the Gyumri community, which was subject to demolition, came to a preliminary agreement to enter into a “corrupt” deal with the citizen, promising not to take any measures to demolish the unauthorized building, moreover, to draw up official false documents stating that the building was demolished and newly built, to legalize it, demanding a large bribe of four million AMD in return.
In order to fulfill their criminal intent, the chief architect, in accordance with the preliminary agreement with the head of the community, and with his knowledge, met with the citizen who had built the unauthorized building on various occasions, discussing the details of the process of legalizing the building by city officials, as well as the circumstances of transferring the requested bribe amount in stages, according to the “action-money-action-money” scheme, thus presenting a final demand for a bribe and receiving a promise to give it.
In addition, factual data was obtained during the criminal proceedings that the members of the criminal group, seeking to ensure the secrecy and continuity of their corrupt actions, purposefully targeted their undesirable members of the Gyumri Community Council with the aim of collecting various information about them and making them controllable through blackmail.
In addition to the above, during the preliminary investigation of the criminal proceedings, factual data were obtained that the head of the community, taking advantage of the opportunity granted to him by his office, practically initiated a process of creating artificial grounds to privatize the land plot actually used by him and in the community balance sheet in the name of the person involved and forging official documents in order to legalize the arbitrarily constructed building belonging to his close relative. Moreover, factual data were also obtained during the proceedings about the chief architect receiving bribes of various amounts from a number of citizens in exchange for committing illegal actions in 6 more cases.
Large-scale operational-investigative and evidentiary actions are continuing to be carried out in the criminal proceedings to fully reveal the structure and operating mechanisms of the corruption scheme, as well as the full range of persons involved in the criminal network.