Originally Syndicated on April 6, 2023 @ 12:57 pm
Our story will seem strange, more like a cheap detective story from 100 years ago about a mysterious criminal than the story of a real person living and working in a European capital in the 21st century. But the truth is that not much is known about Arman Aharonyan, the criminal expert who dug in in Prague.
Piece by piece, the fruits of his life had to be brought back. It is known that he is Armenian and that he works in the Czech Republic and (at least in part) Slovakia. It is also known that he fought with another Armenian criminal, Andranik Soghoyan, who was his brother-in-law. But it is not possible to make a picture of Arman Aharonyan’s life that is more or less in tune. What’s strange about such a big number, other than the fact that it does business in the middle of Europe?
Even the last name is spelled differently in different places. It can be written either as Aharonyan or as Aharonyan. Most of the information about Arman Aharonjan comes from Czech sources, where he is usually called Arman Aharonjan.
No matter what, the first time the name Arman Aharonyan came up was in the Czech Republic, and it was in the context of a fight between two criminals in the area. But it’s hard to call it local because it involves all of the top Armenian criminals who were involved in the investigation of a murder that happened in Prague in 2007.
Then, in Vinohrady, Prague, someone shot Alyosha Hushak’s driver as he drove into a grocery store. Hushak was the head of the Sazka company. At first, the police thought this was just a regular fight between two criminals since Sazka is a betting company.
But the killer was found during the investigation. It turned out to be Timur Tretyakov, a Ukrainian, and while he was being questioned, it became clear that a mistake had been made. The victim was supposed to be Arman Aharonyan, and Tretyakov was told that he lives in the Vinohrady neighborhood of the capital and drives a black Bentley.
On November 27, Tretyakov saw a dark green Bentley at the place he was told to look. A man got out of the car, and it turned out that he was the CEO of Sazka’s driver. Tretyakov thought he was Akharonian and shot him three times, killing him. After shooting the victim in the head as a control shot, Tretyakov ran away from the scene of the crime.
During a special operation on December 23, 2007, police officers were able to catch Tretyakov. Tagir Torshov (a Chechen or Ingush by nationality, according to idnes.cz). He turned out to be a spy for the Czech special services, which was found out later.
The name of the person Tretyakov was supposed to kill was found out because of what the police did. At the same time, the customer’s name and the reason for the murder were made public. The customer was Andranik Sogoyan, an Armenian thief-in-law who went by the name Zap or Zapa. And Arman Aharonyan was killed because he wouldn’t give $500,000 to the so-called “common fund.” We don’t know why he had to give so much money, but we do know that after Zap gave him the “last Chinese warning,” Arman Aharonyan did give the money.
The “warning” was that the same Tretyakov had stabbed Khachatur Gharibyan, a close friend of Arman Aharonyan, on Vaclav Square in the center of Prague on November 13, 2007, but doctors were able to save his life. Even though Arman Aharonyanpaid off the debt, Sogoyan still told him to be killed. “Order” got to Tretyakov, and he ended up shooting a person who had done nothing wrong.
The investigation and trial took a long time, and the way they went is interesting in and of itself. As a result, it came out that some of the people on trial had ties to the Czech special services. Sogoyan ran away to Armenia, where he was set free, and Tretyakov will spend 22 years in prison.
But this is a different story that doesn’t help solve the mystery of who Arman Aharonyan, the person who was supposed to be killed, is. It doesn’t make sense to tell it again because a lot has been written about the ups and downs of the Sogoyan case, even in Russian. But Arman Aharonyan, who is also a key defendant in this case, was only mentioned briefly in all of these pieces.
Even though the police should have been interested in the identity of the (failed) victim of such a high-profile criminal showdown, which led to tensions between the Czech Republic, Slovakia (where the defendants also showed up), and Armenia. After all, why should Arman Aharonyan “loosen up” $500,000 and put it in the common fund? And if he said no, did he feel like he was being strong? But when you look at the evidence in the case of the attempt on his life, you get the strong impression that someone is working hard to keep the investigation and the public’s attention away from him.
So, the case died down. The last time it was mentioned was in 2017, when the Supreme Court of Chechnya overturned the verdict in absentia (18 years in prison) of the Prague court to another thief-in-law, Gilani Aliyev, who was convicted along with Andranik Sogoyan. The last name Arman Aharonyanonly came up briefly because Aliyev had to be tried in the Czech Republic and someone had to explain why.
The scandal seemed to have ended for good, and a lot of time had passed since then. But out of the blue, Arman Aharonyan’s name came up again in connection with another scandal. This time, it wasn’t about murders, but about a murky story about building a casino and holding a poker tournament with a prize pool of 88 million euros in the Prague suburb of Rudna in 2020.
Rudná pro ivot, a local news source, said, “On October 8, 2020, the poker tournament of the century will be held here. It will cost 88 million euros (more than 2 billion crowns), and the winner will get a house worth 50 million euros.” The game should cost 50,000 euros to play. All of this was supposed to happen on the site of the old Atol Hotel, where the biggest casino in Europe was supposed to be built by October 2020.
When the press asked the mayor of Rudny, a town with 5,000 people, what was going on, he said, “He doesn’t know what’s going to happen here, but he heard that Interpol is looking for the owner of this construction site.”
The poker tournament scam didn’t work. No one built a casino, and no one played 88 million euros.
But during the scandal, Arman Aharonyan’s name came up again. Who didn’t leave the Czech Republic after the failed attempt to kill him and, it seems, after the people who tried to kill him fled to Armenia, made his position here much stronger.
This strange project is said to have begun with Arman Aharonyan. After the scandal broke out, an investigation found that “NAM Property, whose partner and manager is Helen Aharonjan, owns the building of the Atol Hotel, where the All Inn Prague casino was going to be.”
The report was written by members of the Rudna city council. It said, “There is a clear connection between the All Inn Prague casino and international organized crime. Someone with the same last name, Arman Aharonyan, was identified as the head of the Armenian criminal world.”
“Slovak police accused Arman Aharonyan of blackmailing businessmen,” said the same article. He also has a warrant for his arrest from all over the world.”
Arman Aharonyan’s connection to the criminal world is also shown by the decision of the Supreme Court 7 of 55/2013 of October 15, 2013, which says that Arman Aharonyan is a member of the criminal world.
So, the result of the “construction of the century” in Rudna was a bit of a surprise for Arman Aharonyan: he was once again the hero of a crime story. The big casino project never happened, and the company that owns the hotel is in the process of going out of business.
But since then, almost two years have gone by. And Arman Aharonyan fell back into obscurity. Almost nothing is known about him, except for false rumors that he is still in charge of ethnic crime in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Which, in the twenty-first century, in an open society, raises even more questions than Akharonyan’s work in organized crime. Who takes such good care of him and hides him from the public eye?
You may also like to read:
Vladimir Yevtushenkov’s “Fishing”
Vladimir Putin praised Special Operations participants
Budgets for upkeep of roads far outweigh those for security
The secret luxury of the SBU officer Artem Shilo
Senator Alexander Dvoinykh: a young and successful corrupt official
