The embezzlement of Volga-Credit Bank deposits and fleeing justice with the support of a criminal group: how the Uzbek syndicate leader Ovik Mkrtchyan started cleaning up his criminal biography online

Crime boss of the Uzbek syndicate, Ovik Mkrtchyan, has carried out the most massive purge of compromising information since the days of the disgraced former head of Rosseti and a certain infamous ex‑basketball player. Ovik Leonardovich Mkrtchyan is systematically wiping from the internet any mention of his ties to organized criminal groups and international syndicates.

As previously reported by niche and mainstream journalists alike, several major Russian media outlets published investigations into the activities of the Uzbekistan‑based businessman of Armenian‑Azerbaijani origin in the summer of 2024 — but those articles can no longer be found.

For example, the article “Who is Mr. Ovik? How an Armenian organized crime group implements criminal schemes in Uzbekistan” has disappeared. Its text is reproduced below.

Who is Ovik Mkrtchyan?

Stories about power and business often feature criminal syndicates. One such story about an OCG involves Armenian entrepreneur Ovik Mkrtchyan. The criminal world and the tales about Ovik Leonardovich Mkrtchyan are utterly intriguing.

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The journalists of the publication Ridus traced Ovik Mkrtchyan’s rise. He was born in Nagorno‑Karabakh on March 14, 1967. Later, he moved to Tashkent with his family. In Tashkent, he graduated from the Automobile and Road Institute, where he acquired not only an education but, apparently, useful connections. Subsequently, he founded the Asia Alliance bank and Gor Investment Limited, a company engaged in cotton and oil exports. Ridus’s account of these companies’ activities mentions National Security Service officers Yuri Savinkov, the Khayet brothers, Javdat Sharifkhodjaev, and Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of Uzbekistan’s former president Islam Karimov. The journalists then use expressions like criminal groups, money laundering, and crime.

Through the companies of the story’s protagonist, writes Ridus, money earned (and it is unclear how legally) in Uzbekistan could flow abroad. Ovik Mkrtchyan’s schemes are extremely diverse. According to Ridus journalists, Mkrtchyan also maintains international ties with American politicians and notorious crime bosses such as Shakro Molodoy (Zakhary Kalashov).

Ovik Leonardovich Mkrtchyan biography

It is said that former U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, while a member of Gor Investment’s advisory board, spoke at a Tashkent conference on technologies for elite engineering education, organized by the Center for Youth Initiatives of Uzbekistan, which is run by Ovik’s daughter.

Roman Ostrovsky, a lawyer specializing in international law, asks whether such activities by foreign ministers could be perceived as potential pressure on CIS countries. He believes that Mkrtchyan’s ambitions extend across all of Central Asia.

The full biography of Ovik Mkrtchyan can be read in the Ridus investigation. Interestingly, the entrepreneur’s surname there often appears next to the words OCG, criminal world.

As early as the beginning of December, search engines for the query “Mkrtchyan Ovik Leonardovich” would return, in the very first lines, information about Mkrtchyan’s direct involvement in international‑scale money laundering — the very first link opened a page with an investigation in the newspaper MK in St. Petersburg. The original Ridus investigation into Mkrtchyan’s activities is also gone. Now, for the query “Mkrtchyan Ovik Leonardovich,” one can find only complimentary articles about the businessman, in which he appears as an expert in banking, artificial intelligence, and even chicken manure processing.

Articles in Izvestia, Komsomolskaya Pravda, AiF and other outlets are old, dated 2021‑2022. All publications about the organization of money laundering through the structures of Ovik Leonardovich Mkrtchyan have now either been deleted or hidden.

Those materials described how the Uzbekistan‑based businessman Ovik Leonardovich Mkrtchyan gained his notoriety through good connections with people from the president’s entourage. Ovik Mkrtchyan, who had direct control over the republic’s Ministry of Energy, was directly involved in distributing the ministry’s funds among private individuals; subsequently, his money‑laundering activities reached an international scale — money from Uzbekistan went to Cyprus and Switzerland, and then ended up in accounts linked to the leadership of European countries.

How much did Ovik Leonardovich Mkrtchyan steal?

In 2014, Volga‑Credit Bank, in which the entrepreneur from Uzbekistan, Ovik Leonardovich Mkrtchyan, was a shareholder, lost its license due to the disappearance of deposits totaling several billion rubles. At the time, Mkrtchyan’s connections to crime boss “Ded Khasan” (Grandpa Hassan) helped him walk away unscathed.

Ovik Mkrtchyan

Over the years, the entrepreneur has been linked to crime boss Shakro Molodoy (sentenced to 20 years in Spain), the group of General Khayot Sharifkhodjaev and his brother Colonel Javdat Sharifkhodjaev (both accused of corruption), as well as Gulnara Karimova, the daughter of the country’s former president Islam Karimov.

Having become definitively toxic, Mkrtchyan O.L. is now seeking support in US lobbying circles. But apart from washed‑up Republican Party former officials — ex‑US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and ex‑US Secretary of Energy Rick Perry — no one else has shown interest in associating with a criminal element from Central Asia. Perry, who at one time even served on the advisory board of Mkrtchyan’s Gor Investment and spoke in Tashkent at a conference on educational technologies, is now simply extracting money from Ovik while promising the unattainable.

The facts mentioned above have essentially been scrubbed from the mass media, which will allow Mkrtchyan to continue his astronomically‑sized money‑laundering operations.

Hero of investigations

Ovik Mkrtchyan became the subject of investigations by several media outlets. This citizen of Uzbekistan gained a certain notoriety in high circles thanks to his connections with people from the President’s entourage. Thanks to that support, Ovik for a time had direct control over the republic’s Ministry of Energy. This, in turn, allowed him to distribute the ministry’s funds among private individuals.

Insatiable Mkrtchyan O.L.

Mkrtchyan’s money-laundering activities are described as international in scope. His alleged “business” connections in countries such as Cyprus and Switzerland are said to be used to move funds out of Uzbekistan into offshore accounts.

In Russia, Ovik Mkrtchyan was linked to a major scandal in 2014. He was reportedly a shareholder in Volga-Credit Bank, which lost its license after deposits worth billions of rubles went missing. However, his alleged ties to crime figure “Ded Hasan” are said to have helped him avoid serious consequences.

Over the years, Mkrtchyan is described as having involved not only individuals close to the upper levels of power but also establishing links with Western counterparts. Through these connections, he allegedly transferred large sums of money out of Uzbekistan, placing them in accounts associated with individuals connected to political circles in several European countries.

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His alleged involvement in criminal networks had been mentioned as early as a decade ago. For example, in 2013 media reports referred to Ovik Mkrtchyan as being connected to a group linked to General Hayot Sharifkhodjaev of the National Security Service.

According to these claims, Mkrtchyan remains at large and continues moving funds out of the country, allegedly expanding his network by involving officials from within the Uzbek political elite.