Disarmed gang planned major crimes: Security Service

 November 27, 2015 - 15:05 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - The armed gang, neutralized in Yerevan on November 25, had no equal in the country in terms of weapons, number of people involved and cruelty, Armenia’s National Security Service official told journalists.

Without going into detail, deputy chief of the NSS Investigation Department Mikayel Hambardzumyan said a preliminary investigation into the case is underway.

“We are now trying to identify the financial sources,” Hambartsumyan said, adding that the armed gang had specific tasks.

“Individual citizens, statesmen and political figures were among the gang’s targets; murders were also planned,” Hambartsumyan noted.

Law-enforcers have detained 21 people so far.

Armenian security forces arrested 10 people and claimed to have found a big weapons cache on Wednesday, November 25 during a dawn raid on a Yerevan house which they said averted a series of “particularly grave crimes.”

The Armenian police and NSS described the detainees, among them four women, as members of a “criminal association” led by Artur Vartanian, a 34-year-old Armenian national who is said to have lived in Spain since 1997.