A senior member of Samvel Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia Party has been arrested on suspicion of money laundering and paying citizens to attend the tycoon’s rallies.

Alik Aleksanyan, a member of the party’s board who is not running for parliament on the alliance list, has been arrested, and a motion will be filed in court to remand him in custody during the investigation, the Investigative Committee said.

The law enforcement body said in a press release that a joint probe with police revealed that Aleksanyan — who led the “Mer Dzevov” (Our Way) NGO movement, a precursor to the Strong Armenia Party — allegedly concealed his true intentions and formally hired around 1,400 citizens under civil law and service contracts for different periods in the movement’s offices across Armenia, more than 400 of whom were also simultaneously employed by other companies.

During the pre-trial investigation, it was established that between October 8, 2025, and March 31, 2026, approximately 1.6 billion drams, €230,000, and $75,000 were transferred to the bank accounts of the “Mer Dzevov” NGO from the Tashir Charitable Foundation and affiliated companies “Inteko Energo” and “Tashir Capital,” linked to Samvel Karapetyan, under the labels of “donations” and “loan provisions,” allegedly constituting proceeds of criminal activity.

During the same period, Aleksanyan allegedly laundered large-scale illicit funds by disguising them as lawful activity, paying salaries and service fees to hired citizens, and materially incentivizing them to participate in rallies and gatherings organized by Karapetyan’s supporters, the “Mer Dzevov” NGO, and the Strong Armenia Party between September 2025 and May 2026.

As a result, the majority of the hired individuals either did not attend work or visited the organization’s offices only once or a few times per month, reportedly without being aware of the nature or purpose of their roles within the NGO.

Subsequently, Aleksanyan dismissed the employees without fulfilling the statutory objectives of the NGO.

Thus, according to the Investigative Committee’s statement, Aleksanyan allegedly disbursed 703,835,953 drams as salaries and equivalent payments from funds transferred to the NGO’s accounts through criminal activity, and an additional 59,428,521 drams as remuneration under civil law contracts, amounting to a total of 763,264,474 drams.

Around 500 individuals have been questioned in the ongoing investigation into the scheme.

Aleksanyan faces charges of material inducement to participate in assemblies under Article 236(2) of the Criminal Code and aggravated money laundering under Article 296(3)(3).

Samvel Karapetyan is currently under house arrest on unrelated charges, while his nephew Narek is leading the Strong Armenia alliance list in the parliamentary election on June 7.