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CYPRUS TROIKA: WHO "STRIPPED" BUSINESSMAN PAYLAK HAYRAPETYAN OF HIS ASSETS?
16:30, May 29, 2013
Ararat Davtyan
Edik Baghdasaryan
Kristine Aghalaryan
The murky dealings of WLISPERA HOLDINGS LIMITED, an offshore company
registered in Cyprus, reveals how elements of Armenia's powerful state,
church and business sectors have been able to operate in tandem in
the pursuit of their own economic interests.
The company has three equal shareholders - RA Prime Minister Tigran
Sargsyan, Primate of the Ararat Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic
Church Archbishop Navasard Kjoyan, and Ashot Sukiasyan.
WLISPERA (WHL) is directly connected to a case involving the seizure
of assets belonging to businessman Paylak Hayrapetyan.
>From June 25, 2010 to June 15, 2011 Ashot Sukiasyan received periodic
loans of $10.7 million from AmeriaBank. As collateral, however,
he used companies owned by Paylak Hayrapetyan and the latter's son.
Receiving the money, however, Sukiasyan failed to abide by the loan
agreement conditions and the business plan he had presented. But this
didn't prevent AmeriaBank to continue freely transferring amounts to
several bank accounts owned by companies registered in Cyprus.
According to instructions of the Dzoragyugh Production Cooperative,
AmeriaBank wired some $9,370,450 of the loan monies transferred to
the cooperative's bank account to the accounts of several offshore
companies held at the Hellenic Bank Publik Company of Cyprus. The
loan monies were transferred to:
A.B.S. GLOBAL LIMITED- $7, 020, 450 WLISPERA HOLDINGS LIMITED- $350,000
STR EMERALD LIMITED- $2,000,000 Let us present another interesting
fact. A portion of the amounts transferred to the Cyprus offshore
accounts, were transferred back during the same time period to the
Dzoragyugh Production Cooperative accounts at AmeriaBank.
In particular, $3,233,000 was transferred to STR EMERALD and $2,099,733
to WLISPERA.
So who is Ashot Sukiasyan? The press in Armenia has reported about
him on various occasions. According to one report, his godfather is
Ararat Primate Archbishop Navasard Kjoyan and that it was Soukiasyan
who gave an expensive Bentley automobile to the clergyman.
Shares of the Dzoragyugh cooperative are equally owned by Ashot
Sukiasyan, his wife and daughter. It is well-known that he owes a
great deal of money to people not only in Armenia, but also in Africa
and Russia.
He and his family have since left Armenia. Our efforts to contact
Sukiasyan failed.
The police in Armenia have launched a criminal case regarding the
abovementioned loan story, but no one has yet been charged with
anything.
Paylak Hayrapetyan was one of those who reported the crime and tells
how he got caught up in the mess in which his assets are on the verge
of being seized.
"In 2009, when the Armenian government was pushing a plan to develop
the diamond and jewellery sector in the country, I invested $3.5
million and launched a business employing 400. I built a factory
and a trade school to prepare craftspeople. One day, I received a
call from Gagik Kocharyan, then the head of the Trade and Market
Regulatory Department at the Ministry of Economics. He invited me to
see the minister on an urgent matter regarding sector consultation,"
says Paylak Hayrapetyan.
Hayrapetyan says that when he arrived at the ministry, the prime
minister had already exited the consultation. The two met on the
stairway landing. He entered the consultation room and then Economic
Minister Nerses Yeritsyan was seated. On one side was Archbishop
Kjoyan, and on the other, Ashot Sukiasyan.
At the meeting, the minister told the heads of 23 diamond and jewellery
manufacturers that $100 million of the $500 million loan to be given
by Russia would be allocated in the form of raw diamonds.
Moreover, Russia had agreed that Armenia would repay this amount in
the form of cultivated diamonds. The minister presented the demand
of the government to the manufacturers at the meeting; namely that
they would have to employ 10,000 as part of the loan deal.
"Then the minister gave the floor to Ashot Sukiasyan who said that he
owned mines in Sierra Leone in Africa and that he was ready to provide
quality raw material 15% cheaper than the Russian offer, Hayrapetyan
said. "Everyone was happy about this, Yeritsyan and his friends. They
agreed and twenty says later Ashot brought a sample of the material.
At this meeting there were some 17-18 businessmen present. They had
brought experts with them. It turns out that the diamond material
was indeed high quality."
Sukiasyan, however, noted that he could supply Armenian businessmen
with such material for years on end if a $12 million investment was
made in his African mines to purchase some necessary equipment. Those
present at the meeting, escorted by Trade and Market Regulatory
Department at the Ministry head Gagik Kocharyan, then went to Swiss
Bank.
"Since it was such a large-scale government project and I was the
eldest of those present, I said that I would be able to immediately
place my property as collateral so that the others wouldn't have to
do so individually. The duration wasn't that long, just three years,"
recounts Paylak Hayrapetyan.
Sometime later, Ashot Sukiasyan said that Swiss Bank had refused to
grant the loan, but that with the intercession of the prime minister,
Minister Yeritsyan and Archbishop Kjoyan, AmeriaBank had agreed to
loan the money.
Sukiasyan placed $33 million dollars worth of property belonging to
Paylak Hayrapetyan as collateral with the bank and received a $10.7
million loan.
"The business plan, on which the loan was given, was drafted by
AmeriaBank. Sukiasyan paid $6,000 for the plan," says Hayrapetyan.
The plan was very similar to the government's plans of 2008 and 2013.
It too was a grandiose plan that envisaged turning Armenia into a world
center for the polishing and sale of diamonds. Of course, this time,
it was the debtor, Dzoraghbyur Ltd., making such a promise according
to the business plan. All the while, the bank transferred monies to
a production cooperative bearing a similar name never noted in the
original business plan.
Thus, the question arises as to why, and upon whose orders, did
AmeriaBank conduct such transcations? Why didn't it monitor the
expenditures of the loan, especially since the amounts were given
in installments? The bank could have, for example, stopped the
seventh instalment given that the debtor hadn't performed any of
its obligations regarding the previous six. Furthermore, the bank
"closed its eyes" to the fact that a portion of the loan amounts
had been transferred back to an account that Dzoraghbyur Production
Cooperative had opened in AmeriaBank.
Surprisingly, despite all this, AmeriaBank took title to all the
property seized from Paylak Kayrapetyan.
(to be continued)
Photo (left to right) - Ashot Sukiasyan, RA Prime Minister Tigran
Sargsyan, Archbishop Navasard Kjoyan
http://hetq.am/eng/investigation/26891/cyprus-troika-who-%E2%80%9Cstripped%E2%80%9D-businessman-paylak-hayrapetyan-of-his-assets?.html
From: Baghdasarian
16:30, May 29, 2013
Ararat Davtyan
Edik Baghdasaryan
Kristine Aghalaryan
The murky dealings of WLISPERA HOLDINGS LIMITED, an offshore company
registered in Cyprus, reveals how elements of Armenia's powerful state,
church and business sectors have been able to operate in tandem in
the pursuit of their own economic interests.
The company has three equal shareholders - RA Prime Minister Tigran
Sargsyan, Primate of the Ararat Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic
Church Archbishop Navasard Kjoyan, and Ashot Sukiasyan.
WLISPERA (WHL) is directly connected to a case involving the seizure
of assets belonging to businessman Paylak Hayrapetyan.
>From June 25, 2010 to June 15, 2011 Ashot Sukiasyan received periodic
loans of $10.7 million from AmeriaBank. As collateral, however,
he used companies owned by Paylak Hayrapetyan and the latter's son.
Receiving the money, however, Sukiasyan failed to abide by the loan
agreement conditions and the business plan he had presented. But this
didn't prevent AmeriaBank to continue freely transferring amounts to
several bank accounts owned by companies registered in Cyprus.
According to instructions of the Dzoragyugh Production Cooperative,
AmeriaBank wired some $9,370,450 of the loan monies transferred to
the cooperative's bank account to the accounts of several offshore
companies held at the Hellenic Bank Publik Company of Cyprus. The
loan monies were transferred to:
A.B.S. GLOBAL LIMITED- $7, 020, 450 WLISPERA HOLDINGS LIMITED- $350,000
STR EMERALD LIMITED- $2,000,000 Let us present another interesting
fact. A portion of the amounts transferred to the Cyprus offshore
accounts, were transferred back during the same time period to the
Dzoragyugh Production Cooperative accounts at AmeriaBank.
In particular, $3,233,000 was transferred to STR EMERALD and $2,099,733
to WLISPERA.
So who is Ashot Sukiasyan? The press in Armenia has reported about
him on various occasions. According to one report, his godfather is
Ararat Primate Archbishop Navasard Kjoyan and that it was Soukiasyan
who gave an expensive Bentley automobile to the clergyman.
Shares of the Dzoragyugh cooperative are equally owned by Ashot
Sukiasyan, his wife and daughter. It is well-known that he owes a
great deal of money to people not only in Armenia, but also in Africa
and Russia.
He and his family have since left Armenia. Our efforts to contact
Sukiasyan failed.
The police in Armenia have launched a criminal case regarding the
abovementioned loan story, but no one has yet been charged with
anything.
Paylak Hayrapetyan was one of those who reported the crime and tells
how he got caught up in the mess in which his assets are on the verge
of being seized.
"In 2009, when the Armenian government was pushing a plan to develop
the diamond and jewellery sector in the country, I invested $3.5
million and launched a business employing 400. I built a factory
and a trade school to prepare craftspeople. One day, I received a
call from Gagik Kocharyan, then the head of the Trade and Market
Regulatory Department at the Ministry of Economics. He invited me to
see the minister on an urgent matter regarding sector consultation,"
says Paylak Hayrapetyan.
Hayrapetyan says that when he arrived at the ministry, the prime
minister had already exited the consultation. The two met on the
stairway landing. He entered the consultation room and then Economic
Minister Nerses Yeritsyan was seated. On one side was Archbishop
Kjoyan, and on the other, Ashot Sukiasyan.
At the meeting, the minister told the heads of 23 diamond and jewellery
manufacturers that $100 million of the $500 million loan to be given
by Russia would be allocated in the form of raw diamonds.
Moreover, Russia had agreed that Armenia would repay this amount in
the form of cultivated diamonds. The minister presented the demand
of the government to the manufacturers at the meeting; namely that
they would have to employ 10,000 as part of the loan deal.
"Then the minister gave the floor to Ashot Sukiasyan who said that he
owned mines in Sierra Leone in Africa and that he was ready to provide
quality raw material 15% cheaper than the Russian offer, Hayrapetyan
said. "Everyone was happy about this, Yeritsyan and his friends. They
agreed and twenty says later Ashot brought a sample of the material.
At this meeting there were some 17-18 businessmen present. They had
brought experts with them. It turns out that the diamond material
was indeed high quality."
Sukiasyan, however, noted that he could supply Armenian businessmen
with such material for years on end if a $12 million investment was
made in his African mines to purchase some necessary equipment. Those
present at the meeting, escorted by Trade and Market Regulatory
Department at the Ministry head Gagik Kocharyan, then went to Swiss
Bank.
"Since it was such a large-scale government project and I was the
eldest of those present, I said that I would be able to immediately
place my property as collateral so that the others wouldn't have to
do so individually. The duration wasn't that long, just three years,"
recounts Paylak Hayrapetyan.
Sometime later, Ashot Sukiasyan said that Swiss Bank had refused to
grant the loan, but that with the intercession of the prime minister,
Minister Yeritsyan and Archbishop Kjoyan, AmeriaBank had agreed to
loan the money.
Sukiasyan placed $33 million dollars worth of property belonging to
Paylak Hayrapetyan as collateral with the bank and received a $10.7
million loan.
"The business plan, on which the loan was given, was drafted by
AmeriaBank. Sukiasyan paid $6,000 for the plan," says Hayrapetyan.
The plan was very similar to the government's plans of 2008 and 2013.
It too was a grandiose plan that envisaged turning Armenia into a world
center for the polishing and sale of diamonds. Of course, this time,
it was the debtor, Dzoraghbyur Ltd., making such a promise according
to the business plan. All the while, the bank transferred monies to
a production cooperative bearing a similar name never noted in the
original business plan.
Thus, the question arises as to why, and upon whose orders, did
AmeriaBank conduct such transcations? Why didn't it monitor the
expenditures of the loan, especially since the amounts were given
in installments? The bank could have, for example, stopped the
seventh instalment given that the debtor hadn't performed any of
its obligations regarding the previous six. Furthermore, the bank
"closed its eyes" to the fact that a portion of the loan amounts
had been transferred back to an account that Dzoraghbyur Production
Cooperative had opened in AmeriaBank.
Surprisingly, despite all this, AmeriaBank took title to all the
property seized from Paylak Kayrapetyan.
(to be continued)
Photo (left to right) - Ashot Sukiasyan, RA Prime Minister Tigran
Sargsyan, Archbishop Navasard Kjoyan
http://hetq.am/eng/investigation/26891/cyprus-troika-who-%E2%80%9Cstripped%E2%80%9D-businessman-paylak-hayrapetyan-of-his-assets?.html
From: Baghdasarian