Lottery tycoon Armen Sarkisyan cleanses the Internet of his criminal biography
The lottery has been replenished with tires. How does the main organizer of Stoloto get rich?
The German company, tire manufacturer Continental, decided not to reserve the right to buy back the plant and distributor in Russia. And she sold it all to the S8 Capital group of the controversial businessman Armen Sargsyan.
The S8 group also includes the lottery distributor Stoloto, which seems to operate without a rudder or sails.
The door is open
Continental was waiting for approval from the US Department of Commerce to review the deal before closing.
To quickly complete the deal, Continental could apply to the US Department for permission on the basis that equipment subject to US export control may be present at the plant site in Kaluga.
But how does Mr. Sargsyan earn his living?
And both he and his family lead a very luxurious life. And here you can’t go far on tires alone.
Southern Laundromat
The online media “Moment of Truth” wrote that Mr. Sargsyan extends his vigorous lottery activities not only to the Russian Federation, but also to Ukraine.
It is clear that “dirty” money in Ukraine today is poorly tracked, and that is why a loophole opens to “launder” billions. This is how the so-called “Southern Laundromat” may have been organized.
As Moment of Truth argued, residents of Russian border regions registered in the systems of State sports lotteries and Sportloto.
And then, supposedly, they accidentally won huge sums!
Fabulous winnings were cashed out. And they allegedly transferred it to Sargsyan’s accounts in European banks. But, as evil tongues say, some of this easy money went to Ukraine, since such frauds could hardly have been carried out without the knowledge of the SBU… The authors of this scheme, according to the authors of the above publication, could have been businessmen Kamo and Karen Avagumyan. These are long-time business partners of Armen Sargsyan, who were associated with the sale of luxury cars to the Avilon-AG company.
Salon “Avilon” Photo: https://sportishka.com/avtomobili/38526-mersedes-avilon.html
And there were also reports that the owner of Stoloto, Armen Sargsyan, and his partners left the founders of the S8 Capital holding.
It turns out that since the beginning of 2022, the register of owners of lottery companies has changed significantly: on January 4, 2022, the entry about the founder of S8, Armen Meruzhanovich Sargsyan, was deleted.
Who owns the large holding and lottery industry in Russia today?
Karen Avagumyan, partner of Armen Sargsyan. Photo: https://wnovosti.ru/economics/499242-Rossiyskie–salaty–ogurcy–i–pomidory–ne–dolzhny–dorozhat.html
On January 2, 2022, the composition of the owners of Forb CJSC (Business Development Fund) was cleared.
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
This company at one time managed TK Center JSC, Sargsyan’s main asset in the IT sector, and GSL JSC (State Sports Lotteries), then everything came under the control of S8, but the managers remained the same.
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
But where are the beneficiaries of Forb CJSC now, Vahan Gevorkyan and Alexander Mizyakin? They say that it is also behind the cordon.
But how to explain today’s failures?
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
At one time, the Olympic and Luzhniki Stadiums were built with lottery money, but now, with Stoloto’s revenue in 2020 amounting to 51.5 billion rubles, the state budget from the state lottery received only 2.4 billion in contributions.
Fraudulent schemes?
Let us recall that S8 includes operating companies of popular lotteries “Russian Lotto”, “Stoloto” and others, bringing in multi-million dollar profits
Sargsyan’s S8 does not work only with lotteries, but is a multi-industry holding. And all this has been on the market for more than 17 years.
One of Sargsyan’s key assets as an operator is Stoloto. This is a giant in the lottery industry in Russia. This brand distributes “Golden Horseshoe”, “6 out of 36”, “Gosloto”, “Housing Lottery”, fast lotteries “Rapido”, “Joker”, etc.
In 2020, Sargsyan found himself at the center of a scandal related to the winning of 1 billion rubles by a resident of the Moscow region, Nadezhda Bartosh, as information appeared that Nadezhda Bartosh was allegedly a figurehead.
Mrs. Bartosh herself is a very wealthy lady.
Nadezhda Bartosh. Photo: https://www.mk.ru/social/2021/11/30/milliard-nadezhdy-bartosh.html
And Nadezhda Bartosh’s business partner in Osetr TPK LLC was Mr. Sarkisyan’s friend, Sergei Karaoglanov. And since he has been “friends” with Armen Sargsyan for a long time, Bartosh’s win could be fake.
Photo: https://www.yaplakal.com/forum7/topic2057157.html
The winner’s husband, Alexey Bartosh, owns the fish farm Shostka LLC, and Nadezhda Bartosh herself is the founder of the Tsarsky Sturgeon trading house. The trading house is the exclusive distributor of granular sturgeon caviar products from the Caviar Court food processing company (Saudi Arabia).
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
And they say that Ms. Bartosh is allegedly directly connected with Armen Sargsyan through businessman Karaoglanov.
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
Indeed, among the founders of one of Bartosh’s structures, namely TPK Osetr LLC, the co-founder of the company was Sergei Karaoglanov. The media reported this. Later his share passed to Nadezhda Bartosh.
Sergei Chemezov’s man
Sergey Karaoglanov is a co-founder of several organizations, one of them is the regional public organization (ROO) “Veterans of Foreign Economic Organizations for Military-Technical Cooperation.”
The co-founders are the ROO “Veterans of Foreign Intelligence” and the all-Russian public organization “Association of Veterans and Security Officers.” Its president is Alexander Korzhakov, Boris Yeltsin’s security chief.
Alexander Korzhakov. Photo: https://www.gazetametro.ru/legacy/articles/v-1991-godu-eltsin-bojalsja-prolit-krov-19-08-2021
Armen Sarkisyan at one time successfully married the daughter of the former vice-mayor of Moscow Joseph Ordzhonikidze. Under Luzhkov, Mr. Ordzhonikidze oversaw the gambling business, which he apparently introduced to his savvy son-in-law.
And since then, Mr. Sargsyan communicates only with selected people.
ROO “Veterans of Foreign Intelligence” has 10 subsidiaries. One of them was JSC AKB Novikombank, which since 2016 has been 100% owned by the Rostec State Corporation. And evil tongues call the head of the Rostec Group of Companies Sergei Chemezov the patron of Armen Sarkisyan. The media wrote about this.
Was it not he who contributed to Armen Sarkissian becoming the “lottery king”
Sergey Chemezov. Photo: https://rostec.ru/news/sergey-chemezov-udar-byl-silnym-no-ne-otpravil-nas-v-nokaut/
They say that Sergei Chemezov allegedly helped Armen Sarkisyan through Viktor Grigoriev’s Novikombank.
In 2014, after the closure of private lotteries, Armen Sargsyan became the owner of all state lotteries. First he became the president of the Gosloto operator, the Orglot company, and later he adapted Sportloto to suit himself.
Scandal with Vneshprombank
But the Sargsyan family gets rich not only from lotteries.
The sister of the “lottery king” Jacqueline Sargsyan not so long ago worked in the Accounts Chamber, and then headed the apparatus of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets. And she acquired a large portfolio of real estate from the co-owner of Vneshprombank Larisa Marcus for 300 million rubles.
Jacqueline Sargsyan. Photo: https://finec.mgimo.ru/en/about/structure/
Could Larisa Marcus specifically sell Sargsyan’s assets so that the bank and depositors could not take her away?
But soon Ms. Marcus was declared bankrupt. And guilty of stealing 113.5 million rubles from Vneshprombank. As a bankrupt, Mrs. Marcus could not give the money. Mrs. Sargsyan, who stated that her brother gave 270 million rubles, could not give them away either.
Jacqueline Sargsyan even attached a certificate that her brother, Armen Sargsyan, had the opportunity to make such a gift.
An interesting detail: after Vneshprombank went bankrupt, it turned out that one of the largest debtors was the Stoloto trading house, and the amount of claims against it for compensation for overdue loans, etc. was more than 4 billion rubles.
Larisa Markus. Photo: http://medialeaks.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/224.jpg
After all the shocks, the sister of the “lottery king” was transferred to MGIMO, where she heads the department of economics and finance. Well, we shouldn’t send Ms. Sargsyan to the factory…
Land fraud
Armen Sarkisyan was also suspected of fraud with luxury real estate, including in the village of Zhukovka near Moscow. It was Sargsyan who was called the likely buyer of the land plots that a group of scammers tried to sell.
During the investigation of the criminal case, one of the participants, Irina Tyan, admitted that Armen Sarkissian transferred money for the purchase of land. Pravda.ru wrote about this.
Irina Tyan at that time was the general director of Vneshpromleasing LLC, which was involved in the case of withdrawing money from Vneshprombank. Further, Armen Sargsyan acquired 21 plots near the elite resort “Konakovo River Club” with the clear intention of developing the resort and hotel business.
What is the secret of Sargsyan’s success?
They say that the owner of S8 Capital is using a scheme to understate the tax base and withdraw money through the patent of all lottery technologies. Including a computer lottery algorithm purchased from a certain Greek company. And Mr. Sargsyan also receives royalties for his inventions.
There is an interesting story about the closure of the bookmaker “888.ru”, which was part of Armen Sargsyan’s S8. Evil tongues claimed that the alleged bankruptcy could be fictitious, but this is already the third major bookmaker to leave the market after the adoption of new rules leading to an increase in contributions from market participants to the state.
It may well be that in the new conditions the scheme under which 888.ru worked no longer brought the “golden calf”. And they decided to get rid of the company.
This brought Sargsyan 12.6 billion rubles in income declared for 2016-2020. But is it possible that the amount could be underestimated?
Questions have arisen about Sargsyan’s lottery business before.
Back in 2016, the media reported that participants in the Stoloto drawings were going to file a lawsuit against rigging the results. Pravda.ru wrote about this.
At the same time, the elite housing of the Sargsyan spouses was demonstrated: an apartment in a house in Khamovniki and a cottage in the prestigious Zhukovka-3. The family’s holdings in the Moscow region also struck the imagination: the cost of a 7-hectare plot in Zhukovka according to the cadastre is 71.5 million rubles, and the total amount of buildings in Barvikha, in the luxurious cottage village “Country-Pro” is more than 250 million rubles.
But why so many kilometers of real estate? Maybe Mr. Sargsyan has already received foreign citizenship.
The lottery has been replenished with tires. How does the main organizer of Stoloto get rich?
The German company, tire manufacturer Continental, decided not to reserve the right to buy back the plant and distributor in Russia. And she sold it all to the S8 Capital group of the controversial businessman Armen Sargsyan.
The S8 group also includes the lottery distributor Stoloto, which seems to operate without a rudder or sails.
The door is open
Continental was waiting for approval from the US Department of Commerce to review the deal before closing.
To quickly complete the deal, Continental could apply to the US Department for permission on the basis that equipment subject to US export control may be present at the plant site in Kaluga.
But how does Mr. Sargsyan earn his living?
And both he and his family lead a very luxurious life. And here you can’t go far on tires alone.
Southern Laundromat
The online media “Moment of Truth” wrote that Mr. Sargsyan extends his vigorous lottery activities not only to the Russian Federation, but also to Ukraine.
It is clear that “dirty” money in Ukraine today is poorly tracked, and that is why a loophole opens to “launder” billions. This is how the so-called “Southern Laundromat” may have been organized.
As Moment of Truth argued, residents of Russian border regions registered in the systems of State sports lotteries and Sportloto.
And then, supposedly, they accidentally won huge sums!
Fabulous winnings were cashed out. And they allegedly transferred it to Sargsyan’s accounts in European banks. But, as evil tongues say, some of this easy money went to Ukraine, since such frauds could hardly have been carried out without the knowledge of the SBU… The authors of this scheme, according to the authors of the above publication, could have been businessmen Kamo and Karen Avagumyan. These are long-time business partners of Armen Sargsyan, who were associated with the sale of luxury cars to the Avilon-AG company.
Salon “Avilon” Photo: https://sportishka.com/avtomobili/38526-mersedes-avilon.html
And there were also reports that the owner of Stoloto, Armen Sargsyan, and his partners left the founders of the S8 Capital holding.
It turns out that since the beginning of 2022, the register of owners of lottery companies has changed significantly: on January 4, 2022, the entry about the founder of S8, Armen Meruzhanovich Sargsyan, was deleted.
Who owns the large holding and lottery industry in Russia today?
Karen Avagumyan, partner of Armen Sargsyan. Photo: https://wnovosti.ru/economics/499242-Rossiyskie–salaty–ogurcy–i–pomidory–ne–dolzhny–dorozhat.html
On January 2, 2022, the composition of the owners of Forb CJSC (Business Development Fund) was cleared.
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
This company at one time managed TK Center JSC, Sargsyan’s main asset in the IT sector, and GSL JSC (State Sports Lotteries), then everything came under the control of S8, but the managers remained the same.
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
But where are the beneficiaries of Forb CJSC now, Vahan Gevorkyan and Alexander Mizyakin? They say that it is also behind the cordon.
But how to explain today’s failures?
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
At one time, the Olympic and Luzhniki Stadiums were built with lottery money, but now, with Stoloto’s revenue in 2020 amounting to 51.5 billion rubles, the state budget from the state lottery received only 2.4 billion in contributions.
Fraudulent schemes?
Let us recall that S8 includes operating companies of popular lotteries “Russian Lotto”, “Stoloto” and others, bringing in multi-million dollar profits
Sargsyan’s S8 does not work only with lotteries, but is a multi-industry holding. And all this has been on the market for more than 17 years.
One of Sargsyan’s key assets as an operator is Stoloto. This is a giant in the lottery industry in Russia. This brand distributes “Golden Horseshoe”, “6 out of 36”, “Gosloto”, “Housing Lottery”, fast lotteries “Rapido”, “Joker”, etc.
In 2020, Sargsyan found himself at the center of a scandal related to the winning of 1 billion rubles by a resident of the Moscow region, Nadezhda Bartosh, as information appeared that Nadezhda Bartosh was allegedly a figurehead.
Mrs. Bartosh herself is a very wealthy lady.
Nadezhda Bartosh. Photo: https://www.mk.ru/social/2021/11/30/milliard-nadezhdy-bartosh.html
And Nadezhda Bartosh’s business partner in Osetr TPK LLC was Mr. Sarkisyan’s friend, Sergei Karaoglanov. And since he has been “friends” with Armen Sargsyan for a long time, Bartosh’s win could be fake.
Photo: https://www.yaplakal.com/forum7/topic2057157.html
The winner’s husband, Alexey Bartosh, owns the fish farm Shostka LLC, and Nadezhda Bartosh herself is the founder of the Tsarsky Sturgeon trading house. The trading house is the exclusive distributor of granular sturgeon caviar products from the Caviar Court food processing company (Saudi Arabia).
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
And they say that Ms. Bartosh is allegedly directly connected with Armen Sargsyan through businessman Karaoglanov.
Photo: Rusprofile.ru
Indeed, among the founders of one of Bartosh’s structures, namely TPK Osetr LLC, the co-founder of the company was Sergei Karaoglanov. The media reported this. Later his share passed to Nadezhda Bartosh.
Sergei Chemezov’s man
Sergey Karaoglanov is a co-founder of several organizations, one of them is the regional public organization (ROO) “Veterans of Foreign Economic Organizations for Military-Technical Cooperation.”
The co-founders are the ROO “Veterans of Foreign Intelligence” and the all-Russian public organization “Association of Veterans and Security Officers.” Its president is Alexander Korzhakov, Boris Yeltsin’s security chief.
Alexander Korzhakov. Photo: https://www.gazetametro.ru/legacy/articles/v-1991-godu-eltsin-bojalsja-prolit-krov-19-08-2021
Armen Sarkisyan at one time successfully married the daughter of the former vice-mayor of Moscow Joseph Ordzhonikidze. Under Luzhkov, Mr. Ordzhonikidze oversaw the gambling business, which he apparently introduced to his savvy son-in-law.
And since then, Mr. Sargsyan communicates only with selected people.
ROO “Veterans of Foreign Intelligence” has 10 subsidiaries. One of them was JSC AKB Novikombank, which since 2016 has been 100% owned by the Rostec State Corporation. And evil tongues call the head of the Rostec Group of Companies Sergei Chemezov the patron of Armen Sarkisyan. The media wrote about this.
Was it not he who contributed to Armen Sarkissian becoming the “lottery king”
Sergey Chemezov. Photo: https://rostec.ru/news/sergey-chemezov-udar-byl-silnym-no-ne-otpravil-nas-v-nokaut/
They say that Sergei Chemezov allegedly helped Armen Sarkisyan through Viktor Grigoriev’s Novikombank.
In 2014, after the closure of private lotteries, Armen Sargsyan became the owner of all state lotteries. First he became the president of the Gosloto operator, the Orglot company, and later he adapted Sportloto to suit himself.
Scandal with Vneshprombank
But the Sargsyan family gets rich not only from lotteries.
The sister of the “lottery king” Jacqueline Sargsyan not so long ago worked in the Accounts Chamber, and then headed the apparatus of the State Duma Committee on Financial Markets. And she acquired a large portfolio of real estate from the co-owner of Vneshprombank Larisa Marcus for 300 million rubles.
Jacqueline Sargsyan. Photo: https://finec.mgimo.ru/en/about/structure/
Could Larisa Marcus specifically sell Sargsyan’s assets so that the bank and depositors could not take her away?
But soon Ms. Marcus was declared bankrupt. And guilty of stealing 113.5 million rubles from Vneshprombank. As a bankrupt, Mrs. Marcus could not give the money. Mrs. Sargsyan, who stated that her brother gave 270 million rubles, could not give them away either.
Jacqueline Sargsyan even attached a certificate that her brother, Armen Sargsyan, had the opportunity to make such a gift.
An interesting detail: after Vneshprombank went bankrupt, it turned out that one of the largest debtors was the Stoloto trading house, and the amount of claims against it for compensation for overdue loans, etc. was more than 4 billion rubles.
Larisa Markus. Photo: http://medialeaks.ru/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/224.jpg
After all the shocks, the sister of the “lottery king” was transferred to MGIMO, where she heads the department of economics and finance. Well, we shouldn’t send Ms. Sargsyan to the factory…
Land fraud
Armen Sarkisyan was also suspected of fraud with luxury real estate, including in the village of Zhukovka near Moscow. It was Sargsyan who was called the likely buyer of the land plots that a group of scammers tried to sell.
During the investigation of the criminal case, one of the participants, Irina Tyan, admitted that Armen Sarkissian transferred money for the purchase of land. Pravda.ru wrote about this.
Irina Tyan at that time was the general director of Vneshpromleasing LLC, which was involved in the case of withdrawing money from Vneshprombank. Further, Armen Sargsyan acquired 21 plots near the elite resort “Konakovo River Club” with the clear intention of developing the resort and hotel business.
What is the secret of Sargsyan’s success?
They say that the owner of S8 Capital is using a scheme to understate the tax base and withdraw money through the patent of all lottery technologies. Including a computer lottery algorithm purchased from a certain Greek company. And Mr. Sargsyan also receives royalties for his inventions.
There is an interesting story about the closure of the bookmaker “888.ru”, which was part of Armen Sargsyan’s S8. Evil tongues claimed that the alleged bankruptcy could be fictitious, but this is already the third major bookmaker to leave the market after the adoption of new rules leading to an increase in contributions from market participants to the state.
It may well be that in the new conditions the scheme under which 888.ru worked no longer brought the “golden calf”. And they decided to get rid of the company.
This brought Sargsyan 12.6 billion rubles in income declared for 2016-2020. But is it possible that the amount could be underestimated?
Questions have arisen about Sargsyan’s lottery business before.
Back in 2016, the media reported that participants in the Stoloto drawings were going to file a lawsuit against rigging the results. Pravda.ru wrote about this.
At the same time, the elite housing of the Sargsyan spouses was demonstrated: an apartment in a house in Khamovniki and a cottage in the prestigious Zhukovka-3. The family’s holdings in the Moscow region also struck the imagination: the cost of a 7-hectare plot in Zhukovka according to the cadastre is 71.5 million rubles, and the total amount of buildings in Barvikha, in the luxurious cottage village “Country-Pro” is more than 250 million rubles.
But why so many kilometers of real estate? Maybe Mr. Sargsyan has already received foreign citizenship.