Armenian "refugee" from Baku and four Azerbaijani citizens arrested in the US for fraud

Washington / 08.08.18 / Turan: A 44-year-old Armen Simonyan, who received a previous US citizenship as a refugee from Azerbaijan, was arrested by the Los Angeles police for fraudulent use of medical cards, drug trafficking and illegal citizenship. The indictment says that Simonyan arrived in the United States 15 years ago with other people's documents. He said that he is from a mixed Armenian-Azerbaijani family and his parents were killed in Azerbaijan. The investigation established that Simonyan was born in Armenia and both his parents are Armenians, and they are alive.

Because of this falsification, the court will deprive Simonyan of US citizenship, the US Department of Justice said in response to a request from the Turan agency.

The same source reports that in 2017 Simonyan was already held accountable for illegally selling 2 million tablets of potent drugs (oxycodone and hydrocodone). If found guilty, Simonyan may be sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.

The response of the US Justice Department also mentions the names of four persons who are allegedly Azerbaijani citizens and were arrested for fraud and money laundering. All of them are young people, included in the general group of 25 people, consisting mainly of immigrants from the former USSR.

The investigation published their names: Mehdiyeva (23 years), Javadzade (30 years), Imamverdiyev (30 years) and Bagir-Pur (24 years). The names of the accused are not fully disclosed, since the court did not find them guilty yet.

25 members of the group are accused by the federal court of Manhattan in multi-million fraud and deceit of citizens for 4.5 million dollars when selling cars throughout the United States. Eleven of the accused were arrested in New York, the rest - in various cities of the United States. They face up to 20 years in prison. -02B-