The Investigative Committee said more than 70 locations were raided simultaneously as part of over a dozen criminal cases opened by it.
Investigators, among them masked officers of the National Security Service (NSS) carrying assault rifles, began searching Tsarukian’s hilltop mansion just north of Yerevan early in the morning. Tsarukian was taken into custody and charged with fraud and money laundering after the search that lasted for almost 12 hours.
In a statement, the Investigative Committee claimed that Tsarukian led a “criminal group” that misappropriated $22 million worth of fuel, transport equipment and other goods supplied by his Iranian business partners from 2022-2024. One of his lawyers, Yerem Sargsian, dismissed the accusation as “ridiculous and absurd,” saying that his client himself was defrauded by the Iranians and alerted the law-enforcement authorities about that.
The committee did not give clear reasons for searches conducted by it jointly with the NSS, the police and the State Revenue Committee at the dozens of companies making up Tsarukian’s Multi Group conglomerate. The law-enforcement agencies sealed off the offices of the most important of those firms, meaning that their operations were indefinitely halted.
They included Armenia’s largest cement plant, a major brandy distillery, as well as sports and entertainment facilities. Thousands of their workers were reportedly sent home as a result. Those companies were audited by tax officials last month.
Artyom Poghosian, the acting director of the cement plant located in the southern town of Ararat, said that law-enforcement officers sealed off its office building despite not confiscating anything during the search.
“They have paralyzed the work of the plant employing more than 1,000 people,” he told Tsarukian’s Kentron TV channel.
Tsarukian’s spokeswoman, Iveta Tonoyan, said that the security forces also seized the offices of a nearby Multi Group quarry, the Ararat distillery and even the headquarters of the Armenian National Olympic Committee headed by Tsarukian.
“This is an international disgrace,” she told journalists. “It will damage Armenia’s international reputation because there has been no precedent in the civilized world for the suspension of the activities of a national Olympic committee and the sealing of its administrative building.”
Pashinian pledged to nationalize the cement plant when he campaigned for the June 7 parliamentary elections in which Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) was one of the main opposition contenders. He has since repeatedly pledged to imprison and “dispossess” Tsarukian as well as the leaders of two other key opposition groups.
Armenia - Prosperous Armenia Party leader Gagik Tsarukian attends an election campaign rally in Yerevan, June 4, 2026.
Tsarukian was charged with “larges-scale” tax evasion and banned from leaving the country on June 9 just as the BHK accused the Central Election Commission (CEC) of illegally barring it from the new Armenian parliament. Two weeks later, prosecutors asked the CEC for permission to bring another criminal charge against the tycoon. They did not disclose it until Monday.
Tonoyan condemned the latest raids as politically motivated. She said security forces are acting on Pashinian’s illegal orders.
“We all understand that this process, the threats of physical, economic and political reprisals intensified active during the pre-election period,” added the BHK leader’s spokeswoman.
The clearly demonstrative searches coincided with Pashinian’s visit to the Russian city of Yekaterinburg where he attended an economic forum and also met with Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin. Russia’s de facto ban on agricultural imports from Armenia imposed in the run-up to the elections was expected to be a key focus of the talks.
Tsarukian blamed Pashinian for the sanctions during the election campaign, saying that they are the result of Yerevan’s pro-Western foreign policy seen by the BHK and other opposition forces as reckless. Moscow has criticized the ensuing crackdown on the tycoon known for his pro-Russian views.
Dmitry Medvedev, a former Russian president heading the ruling United Russia party, deplored on June 28 the new criminal proceedings launched against him. Medvedev they herald a “new round of repression against opposition representatives at odds with the ruling elite.”