Over 907 million AMD embezzled during implementation of EU grant programs in Armenia: 19 charged over incident

The preliminary investigation of the criminal case on embezzlement of grants provided by the EU Delegation to Armenia to a number of NGOs has been completed in the general department of investigations of the Investigative Committee, the Investigative Committee reported.

As a result of large-scale investigative operations sufficient evidence was obtained according to which during 2009-2016 a group of people developed grant programs with an initial agreement, acquired already registered NGOs through which the programs have been submitted to the grant programs assessment competition announced by the EU Delegation to Armenia. The submitted programs were approved with the support of the employee of the EU Delegation, and the funds for the implementation of programs were provided.

The aforementioned persons formed false accounting, financial-economic and program documents, in particular, fake labor, service contracts, documents for purchase of goods, fake documents for business trips based on which they have stolen large sums of money provided for the implementation of the programs.

Based on the investigation sufficient proofs were obtained that embezzlement were made over 18 grant programs funded by the EU Delegation, and the total money embezzled comprises 907.281.869.7 AMD.

19 people were charged over this incident.