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Crime lord Sergey Asatryan and Artur Baghdasaryan are accused of extorting $1.2 million from businessman Karen Mkhitayan. The aggrieved party persistently doesn’t appear in the court, while testimonies of witnesses have created a criminal epic involving murder, mysterious death, Chechen debt collectors, etc., Rosbalt reports.

Karen Mkhitaryan appeared in Nikulinski court only at the first hearing on this case, but he was not questioned. Oddly enough, on that day Sergey Asatryan (Sturgeon Junior) was not brought to the court (allegedly because of the confusion in the documents of escort officers). Sturgeon Junion attended all the other hearings, which, however, were not attended by Mkhitaryan. In fact, the latter is under state protection.  Moreover, shortly before the process was launched, the businessman accompanied by state protection officers tried to break into the editors office of Rosbalt, dissatisfied with one of the articles published.

Consequently, each hearing starts with a similar scenario: Judge Bobkov inquires from the prosecutor where Mkhitaryan is, to which the prosecutor says that this will be become clear by the next session. However, everything is then repeated.

The case materials are read out and prosecution witnesses testify in the absence of the aggrieved party. The last of the witnesses was attorney Natalya Chekmeneva, who worked at the office of aggrieved Aramayis Khumaryan’s father-in-law for over ten years. The information provided by her draws out a real criminal epic.

It started over five years ago, when businessman and owner of Kotlyakovo LLC, Gagik Makvetsyan, was imprisoned on charges of smuggling. According to the witnesses, meanwhile he was in the detention facility in Krasnodar, his assets were “appropriated” by Gagik’s acquaintance, authoritative entrepreneur Aramayis Khumaryan.

There were quite a lot of those assets, including the large land parcels ''registered'' to Kotlyakovo and the power substation with 2,000 kW capacity (with market price of over $4 million).

When Makvetsyan was released, he began struggling for returning his companies. He thus entered into conflict with Khumaryan. In spring 2013, Makvetsyan was killed. An unknown person shot him dead in Audi on Shelepikhinski border levee. Immediately after Gagik's death, Khumaryan began selling the appropriated assets. In particular, a large company building a trade center in the neighborhood was in need of power capacity and decided to buy it from Kotlyakovo. Khumaryan received earnest money—$1,2 million—against receipt for the transaction. But immediately after this, he died under strange circumstances. All his assets, including the land parcels and power substation, which used to belong to Makvetsyan, were inherited by Aramayis' daugher Madlena and her husband Karen Mkhitaryan. The company, which had given a large sum of earnest money began demanding to either complete the transaction or return $1.2 million. However, the witnesses, including Chekmeneva, stated that Madlena and Karen categorically refused doing that. And then ''the heavy artillery'' was put into action. The representatives of the company, which incurred losses, turned to debt collectors from Chechnya, who were disposed quite decisively towards the Mkhitaryans.

Frightened Madlena turned for help to her distant relative, crime lord Sergey Asatryan. ''The criminal general'' went to ''a huddle'' with Chechen debt collectors. On returning, he announced that he had agreed on the non-use of force against Madlen and Karen, but the money was to be returned, since Khumaryan indeed received $1.2 million earnest money, the second party having the relevant documents. 

In the witnesses' words, the Mkhitaryans then began looking for this amount. In particular, the son of late Makvetsyan claimed that Karen and Madlena had told him that while reviewing Khumaryan's papers, they had found a due-bill from Gagik for a large amount of money and demanded that he redeem the debt. The man refused doing this. Moreover, he filed a case in Nagatinski court on returning his father's assets, including Kotlyakov LLC, which he said were illegally appropriated.

''Along with this, Artur Baghdasaryan sold by $1.2 million the land parcels and the building, which were owned by his company. Mkhitaryan was a mediator in this transaction and was to receive an interest in the amount of $200,000. Artur trusted him and included him in the list of persons, who had an access to the deposit box, where the money received from the transaction was kept. In fact, the bank assured him that the access to the box was possible only in Baghdasaryan's presence. However, Mkhitaryan managed to mysteriously take it from there and return his debt, most likely exactly the one amounting to $1.2 million,'' the source familiar with the situation told Rosbalt.

After several unsuccessful attempts to return the money, Baghdasaryan told the unpleasant story to his nephew Sergey Asatryan, who joined the talks with Karen Mkhitaryan on returning the disappeared money.  However, the crime lord was unlucky. According to the case materials, the telephones of Sturgeon Junior were wiretapped in connection with the investigations on the series of assaults on money transporters.

The investigators recorded several talks on Mkhitaryan's debts, after which they invited the latter for conversation. Mkhitaryan wrote a statement on extortion.

Under the control of the investigators, Mkhitaryan pretended he was ready to begin returning the money.  On 19 November 2015, Sergey Asatryan and Artur Baghdasaryan were arrested by the officers of Moscow Criminal Investigations Department on charges of Article 163 of the Russian Criminal Code (extortion).

During the investigation, Mkhitaryan gave testimonies on allegedly receiving threats also from Sergey's father, influential crime lord Eduard Asatryan (Edik Sturgeon), who was convoyed to Moscow from a prison camp, where he serves a sentence for illicit drug possession. During the interrogation Edik Sturgeon denied his guilt. He noted that he was in Greece at the time of the conflict and asked the sides on phone to refrain from ''abrupt moves.'' He also suggested gathering after his return to solve the issues ''cousinly''.

During the line-up, Mkhitaryan confirmed the testimonies of Asatryan Senior. Consequently, new charges were not brought against Sturgeon and he was sent to serve his sentence in the prison camp.  

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