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The Basmanny Court received the ICR’s petition to extend the arrest period for the former official…

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The Basmanny Court received the request of the Investigative Committee to extend the arrest of the former official of Rosreestr, the king of smuggling, a friend of certain representatives of the special services, the former vice-mayor of the city of Artik, ex-adviser on special assignments to the Chairman of the National Assembly of the Republic of Artsakh Boris Avakyan. He is accused of smuggling and causing damage to the state in the amount of about 4 billion rubles. Moreover, the court received documents against Avagyan. It turned out that Boris had a complete set of documents for both the last name Avagyan (received at birth, but then changed it) and the last name Avakyan (he lived under this last name for many years), which he used when he moved around while on the international wanted list.

As reported by the Cheka-OGPU, Avakyan was detained on December 16 at the “Spices and Joys” restaurant in St. Petersburg, when he met with a former employee of the SEB of the FSB of the Russian Federation, Igor Oleynik. Avakyan has been wanted since 2016; the Basmanny Court decided to place him in custody for 2 months from the moment of extradition to Russia or detention on the territory of the Russian Federation. The decision was made in absentia, since Avakyan had gone on the run by that time. Now these two months from the moment of detention are expiring and the Investigative Committee is asking to extend the arrest.

Avakyan has an interesting biography.

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The operation carried out in 2008 by the FSB Internal Security Service under the leadership of Oleg Feoktistov and his right-hand man Ivan Tkachev at the Cherkizovsky market became the first serious trouble for Boris Avakyan. A case was opened against the main “gate” through which smuggling went to Cherkizon, the largest St. Petersburg customs broker Rosmoravia. The co-founders of Rosmoravia were: retired FSB colonel Nikolai Rybkin, businessmen Yuri Pototsky, Alexander Tarakanov and Boris Armenovich Avagyan, who also served as the broker’s general director. The first three were arrested. But Avagyan is not. Moreover, he changed his “exposed surname to Avakyan” and continued to build a career only under the cover of Feoktistov and Tkachev. It is in cooperation with them that the secret lies that Avagyan-Avakyan did not go to jail and subsequently each time avoided serious responsibility, being involved in many cases of smuggling.

At one time, Avakian was the “king of smuggling” with many very high-ranking connections. He was helped by (now former) Deputy Prosecutor Generals Alexander Gutsan, Sahak Karapetyan, Deputy Head of the Investigative Committee Vasily Piskarev, high-ranking FSB officers, including from the FSB Internal Affairs Directorate. Avakyan was an active participant in the security forces’ wars and financed the participants in these battles. And he simply outplayed himself. As a result, he became a defendant in a smuggling case, fled to Armenia and filed a complaint with the local prosecutor’s office against the ex-chief of the 7th Department of Directorate “K” of the FSB, Vadim Uvarov, and his alleged accomplices from the Federal Customs Service and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Avayakn claims that security officers extorted $6 million from him. Avakyan’s testimony includes the names of the former head of Directorate K of the FSB of the Russian Federation, Viktor Voronin, and the former head of the banking department of Directorate K, Kirill Cherkalin.

Avakyan began his career in Artsakh in 2018, after the change of government. He was appointed deputy head of the Artik community.

During the war, the President of Karabakh appointed him as the representative of the President of Artsakh on special assignments, and after the war he awarded the rank of colonel, appointing him deputy head of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the republic.

“ВЧК ОГПУ”