On the basis of the report on the crime received from the Investigation and Operational Intelligence Department of the RA SRC, the General Department of Investigation of Smuggling and Economic Crimes of the RA Investigative Committee of the RA Investigative Committee, initiated and carried out extensive preliminary investigation in accordance with the features of Article 290, Part 3, Clause 2 of the RA Criminal Code, identified a number of essential circumstances of the criminal mechanism of committing apparent tax abuses in the sales turnover in particularly large amounts in the “Nor Zovk” LLC, with the use of information technologies.
The Investigative Committee reported.
In particular, as a result of extensive administrative and evidentiary actions, operational-investigative measures carried out by the RA Investigative Committee, National Security Service and State Revenue Committee employees, factual data was obtained that the owner of 100 percent of the shares of “Nor Zovk” LLC A.A., with a preliminary agreement of the responsible persons of “Nor Zovk” LLC – Director R.A. and Chief Accountant S.S., aimed at not paying taxes in particularly large amounts: 4,127,611,164 AMD, during the period of 2019-2023, by entering distorted data into the tax calculations of “Nor Zovk” LLC hid the object of taxation. In order to unimpededly implement the criminal intent, hide the income received from all the stores of the “New Zovk” LLC and at the same time control the real turnover, during the period of 2019-2023, they involved an LLC operating in the software sector, which, on the instructions of the owner of “Nor Zovk” LLC and for payment, provided the appropriate information technology tools and means for the commission of the crime.
In particular, the trading program was implemented in the chain of stores of “New Zovk” LLC, which was combined with a hidden electronic server system. As a result of the implementation of the program and operation electronic server system in the network of stores of “Nor Zovk” LLC, the actual sales turnover of the “Nor Zovk” LLC, the amount actually received for the sold products, and the information on actual sales has been accumulated in the electronic server system. And in order to hide the applied criminal system, the buyers conducting trade from the chain of stores of “Nor Zovk” LLC were provided with receipts corresponding to the amounts actually paid, generated through an external (commercial) program.
As a result, during the period of 2019-2023, the sales turnover was less than the actual sales turnover of the company in the reports submitted to the tax authority for the specified period, as a result of which 2,205,858,586 AMD value added tax and 1,921,752,578 AMD profit tax were not calculated and paid to the state budget.
Based on the factual data obtained during the investigation, the body implementing the proceedings submitted a motion to the supervising prosecutor regarding the owner of “Nor Zovk” LLC A.A., Director of the Company R.A. and the Chief Accountant S.S. for committing the criminal acts provided for in Article 290, Part 3, Clauses 1 and 2 of the RA Criminal Code, and the owner of the aforementioned LLC operating in the field of software, V.S. for supporting and assisting the mentioned criminal acts.
They were arrested to face trial.
The investigation is in process.
Note: The suspect or the accused of the alleged offence is deemed innocent unless his or her innocence is proved by virtue of the effective court verdict in the manner prescribed by the Criminal Procedure Code of the Republic of Armenia.
