The investigative publication Hetq.am exposed the suspicious investment and the lack of an obvious impact generated by it in an article published on Wednesday.
The now defunct agency, the Armenian National Interests Fund (ANIF), spent the money through a subsidiary to buy 49 percent of the company, CFW, just eight days after it was registered in a tax haven in the U.S. state of Delaware. The investment was supposed to help CFW train cybersecurity specialists for Armenia’s private sector.
CFW never submitted to the ANIF subsidiary any reports about its operations and, in particular, the use of the government funding. According to Armenian tax authorities, the offshore company employed 15 people in 2023 but now has only one employee, Karine Andreasian, who is also its director.
Andreasian is a close friend of Avinian’s wife, Mariam Pahlavuni. The two young women also own sizable stakes in another private firm. Hetq.am said that Andreasian declined to answer any of its questions sent by e-mail.
CFW secured the government funding, significant by Armenian standards, at a time when Avinian headed the ANIF’s board of directors. The fund was set up 2019 for the purpose of attracting foreign investment in Armenia. It reportedly spent tens of millions of dollars worth of government money in the following years.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s government dissolved the ANIF last year due to the obvious failure of its mission. Also, an Armenian law-enforcement agency launched a criminal investigation into a possible waste of public funds and other financial abuses by the fund’s management.
The Investigative Committee has not arrested or charged anyone so far. It declined to say on Thursday whether Avinian has been questioned in the probe.
The Yerevan mayor, who is a senior member of Pashinian’s Civil Contract party, has not yet commented on the Hetq.am article which prompted serious concern from Armenia’s leading anti-corruption watchdog affiliated with Transparency International.
Varuzhan Hoktanian, the programs director at the Anti-Corruption Center, said the publication revealed a “blatant conflict of interest” and possibly an instance of “grand corruption.”
“Here we have at least a serious suspicion of grand corruption, if the criminal case does not move forward,” Hoktanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
An Armenian opposition lawmaker, Anna Grigorian, challenged Pashinian to comment on the revelations during the Armenian government’s question-and-answer session in the parliament on Wednesday. “Can corruption be any different?” she asked.
“In Armenia, all people are equal before the law, and fighting against corruption has been and remains a priority for me,” replied Pashinian.
He said that it is up to law-enforcement authorities to look into the matter. Hoktanian countered that the authorities tend to bring corruption against those senior officials who fall out of favor with Pashinian.
Pashinian has repeatedly claimed to have eliminated “systemic corruption” in Armenia since coming to power in 2018. However, members of his entourage are increasingly accused by Armenian media of using their positions to enrich themselves, their families or cronies.
Avinian also faced such accusations recently. Civilnet.am scrutinized his extended family’s business assets in a journalistic investigation jointly conducted with the international Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP).
In a November article, the publication said that Avinian’s dazzling political career made since the 2018 “velvet revolution” was “accompanied by the growing prosperity of businesses linked to his family.” It singled out an agribusiness firm that received government grants and loan subsidies when Avinian served as deputy prime minister from 2018-2021. Avinian denounced the “false article” before filing a defamation suit against Civilnet.am.
