An investment fund has stepped in to demand immediate action after millions of dollars linked to a notorious Russian tax fraud appeared to slip through Armenia’s financial oversight system without any response from regulators.
The saga began when the Swiss Supreme Court ordered the confiscation of funds tied to the Magnitsky tax fraud. In April, Europe’s top human rights watchdog alerted authorities that millions had been moved from Swiss accounts to banks in Armenia and Israel. Despite the warning from the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, officials in Yerevan failed to take any visible steps.
Now, transaction records obtained by investigative journalists reveal exactly where part of that money landed in Armenia. The lack of regulatory response has forced the primary victim of the $230 million fraud to intervene directly, calling on Armenian prosecutors to freeze the assets.
At the heart of the scandal lies one of the most consequential corruption cases in modern Russian history. In 2007, corrupt officials raided the Moscow offices of Hermitage Capital Management, a fund run by financier Bill Browder. They seized corporate documents, used them to hijack the fund’s holding companies, and fabricated massive losses to claim a fraudulent tax rebate.
Sergei Magnitsky, a tax lawyer hired by Browder, uncovered the scheme and testified against the officials involved. He was arrested on trumped-up charges and died in a Moscow detention center in 2009 after a year of abuse and medical neglect.
Authorities later traced stolen money used to buy luxury real estate in New York through a company called Prevezon Holdings. The U.S. government filed a money laundering lawsuit, which Prevezon settled for nearly $6 million in 2017. The case spurred the creation of the Magnitsky Act, a law now used by Western nations to freeze assets of corrupt officials worldwide.
According to documents cited by Armenian outlet Hetq, 523,569 Swiss francs—roughly $592,000—were transferred in February from the UBS account of Russian businessman Denis Katsyv to Landmark Capital, an Armenian investment firm. The funds moved through Switzerland’s Incore Bank before reaching Evocabank in Yerevan.
The PACE report flagged the transfers weeks later, noting that Swiss authorities had allowed Katsyv to withdraw about 6.5 million Swiss francs before a confiscation order, with the money going to Armenia and Israel. Yet Armenian institutions have cited confidentiality laws to avoid investigating, effectively shielding the transaction.
Evocabank declined to answer questions, citing banking secrecy, while Landmark Capital refused to confirm whether Katsyv was a client. The Central Bank said its Financial Monitoring Center cannot disclose details of specific transfers. The Prosecutor General’s Office confirmed it received no information about Katsyv or his companies from the Central Bank in 2025 or 2026.
Prosecutors also noted they had not received assistance requests from Swiss authorities, leaving the money in a regulatory blind spot.
Frustrated, Hermitage Capital has sent formal complaints to Armenia’s Prosecutor General Anna Vardapetyan and Central Bank official Astghik Karamanukyan, demanding the funds be frozen and an investigation launched into possible money laundering.