Director admits to using fund’s credit card for online gambling
YEREVAN—Armenia’s National Security Service (NSS) on Tuesday placed Ara Vardanyan, the director Hayastan All Armenian Fund under arrest on charges of embezzlement and misuse of funds.
The NSS said that Vardanyan has confessed to misappropriating the organization’s funds, including using Armenia Fund money for online gambling.
According to the NSS, Vardanyan, who was detained on Monday, has admitted using a Hayastan Fund credit card with a limit of 20 million drams (approximately $41,500) for online gambling. He has then used donated funds to replenish the credit card account. According to his own testimony, Vardanyan has then made a personal cash infusion into the funds accounts to cover up the missing money.
According to the NSS, during the last week alone, Vardanyan used nearly 14 million drams ($29,000) from the Hayastan Fund credit card for online gambling. From 2016 to 2018 Vardanyan has reportedly misappropriated approximately 130 million drams (around $270,000) for personal use.
Asbarez spoke to officials at Armenia Fund Inc., the Hayastan Fund’s Western Region branch, whose officials said the Fund will issue a statement regarding the latest developments and Vardanyan’s arrest. Follow Asbarez for the latest developments on this story.
The NSS is continuing its investigation while Vardanyan has been remanded into custody.
“Why do you look at the splinter in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the beam of wood in your own eye?”
This is getting ridiculous. It’s nothing new that almost every men, women, and child born and bread during the Soviet era are some way or fashion in acceptance of receiving ill-gotten (papakh) gains when given the opportunity. Similar to the bazaar bargaining mentality of the Persians, the receipt of such fraudulent gains is a feel good measure for most of that generation. It’s in their blood and psyche. Rooting out one or the other will achieve nothing. It must be purged and plucked from the root. The work must begin by disassociating from Mother Russia and start the integration into western civilization.
Much respect to your article much respect.
Mother Russia had an empire which was very supportive of Armenians well before the Soviet years and still is, the Jewish bolshevik takeover created the initial lawlessness, if you are for improving the institutions within Armenia than sure I stand by you nonetheless the liberal self destructive west has nothing to offer to Armenia, without Russia there is no Armenia. In case you didn’t realize there are twice as many Armenians living in Russia than in the U.S. We have our own ancient roots and values, I love our true European values and identity.
If your idea of western civilization is importing terrorists by the droves, encouraging sexual deviancy, and integrating crippling social welfare policy, Armenia has no place in it. Armenians invented western civilization thousands of years ago, and the abomination that subsequent peoples have changed it into is not in any way synonymous with our ideologies or values. It’s easy to blame Russia for the development of crookery in Armenia, but until we recognize that we are the deciders of our fate, nothing will change.
This is the main reason that I was told by my friends in Armenia that we Armenians in Spyurk should not contribute a penny. Our hard earned money goes to the pocket of “talanchiner” like this. The authorities in Armenia have a hard task to convince us that our donations will be used %100 for the betterment of Armenia. Since 2011, I go to Armenia and take my charities and give them directly to the needy people who live in villages border. I feel that this is far more efficient than trusting the bandits.
bravo thats the only way bravo
That’s nice and all, and I’m not saying that what you’re doing is bad in any way, but there is a problem with it. Giving a family a contribution here and there does not build infrastructure: hospitals, roads, schools, irrigation systems like a large organization does. For all it’s worth, let them skim a little from the top, as long as Armenia is getting the significant improvements that it needs.
WE HAVE SOME REAL WINNERS DONT WE!?!? HOPE ARMENIA HAS ENOUGH JAILS!!!
MORE CORRUPTION!
MORE EMBEZZLEMENT!
MORE FRAUD!!!!
Is this what Armenians have DESCENDED to????
THESE PEOPLE ARE NOT CHRISTIAN! They do not fear God. They are SINNERS who are breaking our Christian commandments!!!
WHERE ARE OUR RIGHTEOUS LEADERS? WHY ARE THEY SILENT?!? MAYBE THEY HAVE A FEW MILLION STASHED IN THEIR ACCOUNTS AS WELL!?!?!
PASHINYAN CANT DO IT ALONE!!!
How do you trust ONE person to be in CONTROL of so much money WITHOUT auditing the fund account UNEXPECTEDLY, at different times of the year??? To avoid such embezzlement!!!!
SURPRISE AUDIT is what’s needed to prevent this from happening again in the future.. My experience from working at the Bank!!
Now that’s good news. A new attitude towards crime and embezzlement. The most enriching, the most profitable business environment, is one totally free of coersion and graft. Immagine 50,000 Armenians each with a million dollars investing in Armenia. That would only happen in a business friendly athmosphere. I don’t think that he could have stollen that much money, that many times without others knowing nd noticing. It seems to me that he’s taking the fall for the others. I would investigate everyone that came close to even smelling the money.
This is just a drop in the bucket. So many more out there who are reprehensible for committing years of abuse and waste and those that have harbored them should be equally held accountable.
Տէր Աստուած ալ որու վստահիս. գարշահոտ ճահիճը աւելի բարեհաճ ու բարեհամբոյր ըլլալ կը թուի քան հայրենի մեր …..:
The damage this man has done to his homeland is immeasurable. I am so angry on so many levels. The death penalty is too light for the high crimes he has committed against his own people.
They should hang them
He should be taken to the nearest animal hospital and be put down
Shocking news
This should not stop us to support and help the Armenian people.
Armen Nalbandian
Doner
Utterly shameful but not surprising. Many people were warning about the fund and its corruption for a long time. It’s sick that an international “charity” would stoop to this but not surprising, and our diasporan organizations just went along with it! Way to dupe and fleece the innocent Armenians of the world who just wanted to help Armenia, they should feel very betrayed. Thank goodness for the revolution for finally exposing frauds like this, we will never develop as a people until such things are rooted out.
I DOUT VERY MUCH THAT I WILL CONTRIBUTE TO ARMENIA FUND ANY MORE IT LOOKED LIKE THIS GUY HAD CART BLANCHE TO ARMENIA FUNDS SO HE COULD GAMBLE IT AWAY HOW PATHETIC. IT IS THE OBLIGATION OF ARMENIA FUND TO GET ALL THE MONEY BACK. I AM A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR TO ARMENIA FUND. I RATHER GIVE MY MONEY PERSONALLY TO POOR PEOPLE IN ARMENIA THAT SEE THIS OUTRIGHT CORRUPTION.SHAME SHAME.
WOW WHERE IS THE CHECKS AND BALANCES HE HAD CARD BLANCH CREDIT CARD TO USE MONEY AND TRANSFER FUNDS WHO THE HELL WAS WATCHING HIM THE FOX WAS WAS GUARDING THE CHICKENS. I AM A REGULAR CONTRIBUTOR TO ARMENIA FUND I JUST CONTRIBUTED TO GYMURI HOUSING WHAT A SHAME WAKE UP ARMENIA FUND AND PUT SOME BASIC REGULATIONS. I WANT TO KNOW HOW LONG HAS HE BEEN DOING THIS. NO MORE CONTRIBUTION UNTIL THERE IS IRON CLAD GUARANTEES I WILL NOT CONTRIBUTE. SHAME SHAME AND I AM MAD LIKE HELL
This is terrible. The “what did you expect” excuse is BS. I had faith that a huge charity like Armenia Fund had smart people involved, the smartest (most honest) people involved, who put safeguards in place. Millions of dollars were being donated from good-hearted Armenians in the Diaspora. SAFEGUARDS should have been in place. Is this how Armenian millionaires run their businesses? Of course not. — With all the “rumors” about corruption at Armenian Fund, the leadership should have put double or triple safeguards in place. They should know that human nature is a strange thing, sometimes. Truly, UNBELIEVABLE. —- I will not accept any excuse.
Hayastan All Armenian Fund is dead. No one trusts them anymore. In the end, WE LIVE AND WE LEARN. We promise, never to make a mistake again and give our hard earned money to an organization that embezzles the money of poor Armenians. That’s all.
There are much better charities such as:
AEF, Armenian Bone Marrow Registry, American Red Cross, St. Jude’s, and CHLA