From ‘insurance fraud’ to ‘uranium smuggling’: Armenia getting bad international press lately - Analysis | ArmeniaNow.com

From ‘insurance fraud’ to ‘uranium smuggling’: Armenia getting bad international press lately - Analysis | ArmeniaNow.com: "The Guardian, one of Britain’s leading national dailies, ran a story on Monday about the botched attempt by two citizens of Armenian to smuggle a small amount of highly enriched uranium into Georgia – “the stuff that nuclear warheads are made of.” The Armenians are said to have intended to sell the HEU to a group posing as Islamists (in fact representatives of Georgian special services).

The incident happened in April, but its details were disclosed only on Sunday in a closed-door trial in Georgia.

Armenian National Security Service spokesman Artsvin Baghramyan said on Monday that the enriched uranium smuggling case was disclosed “in close cooperation between the special services of Armenia and Georgia”.

He said still in April a citizen of Armenia, Garik Dadayan, was arrested as part of the case and a criminal case was brought against him.

The two citizens of Armenia on trial in Georgia pleaded guilty to smuggling charges and face at least ten years in prison.

In general, the subject of ‘Armenian’ crime became active in international media after October 13 when dozens of members of a criminal syndicate were arrested and charged in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere in the United States over a large-scale government medical insurance fraud. The backbone of the group were immigrants “with substantial ties to Armenia” or Armenian citizens. They were charged with a multi-million fraud through stealing personal data of thousands of doctors and patients."

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