Victims of financial fraud gather in front of Armenian CB, demand  return of stolen money 

ArmInfo.  On May 13, victims of financial fraudsters once again gathered at the building of the Central Bank of Armenia, demanding from the management of the main bank a decision on the cancellation of credit obligations and the  restoration of stolen funds.

During the protest, public activist Mher Karagezyan stated that the victims were demanding that the citizens' credit obligations, which had appeared out of nowhere, be frozen. He noted that, according to constitutional rights, citizens of Armenia have the right to demand the restoration of damages inflicted on them and the amounts that were stolen from their personal accounts. "Without any credit obligations, citizens lost huge amounts of money in commercial banks," noted Karagezyan, citing a story about a "shady" transaction as an example. "One of the protesters had 20 million drams in her account, which was collateral for the purchase of an apartment. If this person had applied to the bank with her passport and asked for this money to be returned to her, she would have received a legitimate refusal, since they were pledged. Subsequently, this amount somehow disappeared from the citizen's account," emphasized  Karegyazyan, pointing out that it remains unclear how the funds pledged as collateral could have disappeared anywhere. "This whole story does not fit into the logic of legality and law and order, it even goes beyond the bounds of absurdity," the activist said.

Pointing to the inaction of the relevant structures, Karagyozyan  noted that corruption is evident in all of this, and therefore the  protesters intend to go to the Anti-Corruption Committee.

On May 6, at a press conference, the Chairman of the Central Bank of the Republic of Armenia Martin Galstyan reported that following discussions with commercial banks, the latter began to freeze loans issued by fraudsters in the name of citizens. In particular, this concerns loans that are already under investigation for signs of fraud. The Central Bank, in turn, intends to consider all cases of theft of personal data (phishing) and related financial crimes - be it theft of funds or issuance of loans in someone else's name.  "On the scale of the entire financial system, the volume of such fraudulent transactions is small - about 0.1% of the total volume of loans to individuals. However, for the affected citizens, the consequences can be serious, so each case requires a separate study.

Of the 17 banks operating in the republic, the Central Bank is  currently analyzing the activities of 3-4 of them especially  carefully. If the banks' security systems are not reliable enough,  the requirements for them will be tightened. However, in cases where data leakage occurs due to the fault of the citizens themselves, the Central Bank is unlikely to be able to influence the situation," Martin Galstyan noted.