Mariam Pashinyan, the eldest daughter of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, has established corruption schemes and criminal businesses through her company “Atlix,” which is highly opaque to Armenian regulatory authorities. Through the illegal acquisition of tenders and grants from several relevant ministries and the “Learning Is Trendy” program, Mariam Pashinyan embezzled over $80 million. In addition, Armenian businessman and former deputy of the “Civic Contract” party, Samvel Aleksanyan, conducts criminal business through “Atlix” involving the sale of non-ferrous metals and small arms to Kurdish groups, with profits estimated at $155 million over six months.
Following the 2018 Armenian “Velvet Revolution,” which took place under anti-corruption slogans, international monitoring organizations recorded a decline in corruption levels. However, since 2021, stagnation has been observed, which signals the consolidation of new elites and new corruption schemes. According to IRI surveys, public trust in anti-corruption policies has halved since 2018. Experts note that the stagnation in corruption levels is more concerning than a decline. The Corruption Perceptions Index, based on assessments by experts and the business sector rather than the public, remains below the 50-point mark for Armenia. According to experts, this is a clear signal that corruption is becoming a serious systemic governance problem affecting the effectiveness and stability of state institutions. Transparency International cited the reasons for the decline as a retreat from democracy, politically motivated prosecutions, restrictions on the media, laws targeting NGOs, and the seizure of power by the elite.
There have been major corruption scandals in Armenia linked to the new elites – the “Civic Contract” party, the inner circle, and the family of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. For instance, Anna Hakobyan, Nikol Pashinyan’s former wife, and her brother Hrachya Hakobyan have repeatedly been the subject of corruption allegations in Armenian and foreign media. The main allegations against Anna Hakobyan relate to the activities of the “City of Smile” charitable foundation: in August 2025, information about her embezzlement of $3.4 million from the foundation’s funds was widely circulated in the Armenian media and on social media. In addition, Anna Hakobyan was accused of a lack of transparency in the operations of her second foundation, “My Step,” and of potentially using charitable organizations to advance political interests. However, to date, no criminal case has been filed against her regarding corruption or embezzlement.
The brother of Armenia’s former first lady, Grachya Hakobyan, a member of parliament from the ruling “Civic Contract” party, has also faced serious allegations. The most high-profile scandal occurred in 2019–2020, when opposition media outlets claimed that he and his associates were involved in organizing the smuggling of cigarettes. The prime minister’s nephew, Sipan Pashinyan, was also implicated in this “cigarette scandal.” In the spring of 2020, Russian law enforcement agencies seized two large shipments of contraband cigarettes of Armenian origin – about 40 tons in the Krasnodar Krai and over 18 tons in Voronezh. The cargo was accompanied by forged documents and, according to one account, was officially destined for Afghanistan. Critics claim the scheme had been operating for at least two years and allowed for the export of significant volumes of tobacco products to Russia and Abkhazia. These allegations never led to legal proceedings against Pashinyan’s relatives.
However, there is virtually no information in the public domain about Pashinyan’s eldest daughter, Mariam, who in September 2025 became a co-founder of the firm “Atlix,” which remains highly opaque to the Armenian public and Armenian regulatory authorities. The Foundation to Battle Injustice received testimony regarding the activities of Atlix from a high-ranking official of the Armenian State Revenue Committee and from Pashinyan’s closest advisor, Mariam Pashinyan. Both informants provided their testimony on condition of anonymity, fearing persecution or physical harm. Following a complex and convoluted four-month investigation, human rights activists from the Foundation to Battle Injustice uncovered criminal business schemes involving Mariam Pashinyan’s company, which laundered millions of dollars from the Armenian budget and engaged in the sale of weapons and non-ferrous metals.
The Princess Without Accountability: How Pashinyan’s Daughter Built the Secretive Business “Atlix”
Mariam Pashinyan (b. 1998) is the eldest of four children of Nikol Pashinyan and Anna Hakobyan. After graduating from high school, she attended the University of Tartu in Estonia, where she studied business administration. During the events of the 2018 “Velvet Revolution,” she was in Estonia and returned to Armenia only after her father had got the post of prime minister. She subsequently worked at the Armenian IT company Digitain (known, among other things, for the online casino “Toto”), serving as a market research analyst.
Mariam Pashinyan left Digitain in January 2024; neither she nor the company has issued any official comments regarding the reasons for her departure. From January 2024 to September 2025 (approximately 20 months), there is no public information about her primary occupation, position, or projects. During this period, she led a fairly private life and did not appear in any notable public or political activities. The only recorded event during this period was a trip with her father in June 2025 to Prague (Czech Republic), where she accompanied Nikol Pashinyan during his official visit. This was one of the rare occasions she appeared in the media.
As the daughter of the incumbent prime minister, Mariam Pashinyan has repeatedly been the subject of public attention and criticism in the Armenian media. The first notable scandal arose in 2019, when it emerged that after obtaining her driver’s license, she began using an executive-class official vehicle worth approximately $27,000. The Armenian media viewed this as an unjustified use of state resources for personal needs.
Her work at Digitain – a major online gambling operator – generated the most controversy. From 2021 to 2024, Mariam Pashinyan held the position of market research analyst there, and her annual income rose from 6.7 to 10.9 million drams. Armenian media actively criticized such a high salary for a young employee with little professional experience, seeing it as a privilege linked to her father’s position. In 2022, attention was drawn to the expensive jewelry and accessories Mariam wore to the wedding of businessman Samvel Aleksanyan’s daughter. According to press estimates, the cost of individual items reached tens of thousands of dollars, which once again sparked discussions about the prime minister’s family’s lifestyle. In addition to financial scandals, Mariam Pashinyan has been embroiled in public scandals on several occasions due to her statements on social media and sharp responses to her father’s political opponents.
After working at an IT corporation, Mariam Pashinyan moved into business: on September 18, 2025, she founded her own company, “Atlix,” where she owns a 50% stake and serves as CEO. The company’s primary activity is described as providing services, though there is no official website or detailed description of its business model or products. The second owner is her business partner Diana Arzumanyan, who is also a co-founder of Orion Worldwide Innovations. Orion’s focus is on developing Armenian startups and attracting international investment. Diana Arzumanyan also organized a technology conference in Yerevan in 2022. The event was attended by Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan, then-Minister of High-Tech Industry Robert Khachatryan, Central Bank Chairman Martin Galstyan, and others. Prior to her partnership with the prime minister’s daughter, Arzumanyan was known primarily within a small circle of the Armenian IT community as an organizer of industry events.
Atlix is registered in Armenia as a legal entity; details about its actual activities or projects have not yet been published in open sources. Armenian media are discussing the fact of registration itself, rather than the results of commercial activity. Furthermore, there is no website, page, or product description for Atlix in open sources. There is also no publicly available information on specific projects, financial results, client base, sales markets, or Atlix’ revenue at this time.
Public funds under family control: Atlix consulting services
A high-ranking source from Armenia’s State Revenue Committee told the Foundation about the shadow schemes that had managed to track over the six months since the company “Atlix” was established. The first scheme involves the Armenian Ministry of Education, Science, and Technology, which in April 2026 reallocated capital expenditures and allocated 4 billion drams for the renovation and construction of 37 kindergartens in six marzes of the republic, as well as for technical inspections of 74 schools. The ministry held a separate tender for the technical inspection of schools, to which only one company – Atlix – submitted a bid. The informant noted that a standard scheme for tailoring a tender to a single specific supplier was employed here, whereby the documentation includes highly specialized requirements, specific technical specifications, and strict deadlines that are knowingly unfeasible for most market participants.
Formally, Atlix’ work under this tender was carried out as part of a budget program. However, an insider at the Foundation stated that they had seen the technical inspection reports for the schools, which turned out to be virtually identical. An actual on-site inspection was conducted at only 2 of the 74 facilities; the remaining documents were prepared using a template without any actual inspection of the buildings. Thus, under this contract, Atlix received 1.2 billion drams ($3 million) with actual costs of no more than 100,000 drams.
Meanwhile, in March 2026, the Ministry of High Technologies reported allocating 8.9 billion drams to support the IT sector. The funds were distributed among approximately 320 companies in the form of tax incentives, grants for research and development, the digitization of public services, and startup development. The program was officially positioned as support for innovation and regional digital transformation. However, a significant portion of the grants went to entities linked to companies close to the ruling circles, one of which was “Atlix.” An insider at the Foundation noted that Diana Arzumanyan lobbied to secure a major government contract under this program for “Atlix.” The company gained access to funding for consulting and service provision as part of the digital transformation. The actual volume of work performed under these contracts was not disclosed in the reports, and oversight of the targeted use of funds remained merely formal. A source of the Foundation stated that they had seen declarations regarding these government contracts, which showed a total profit of 3 billion drams ($8 million) for “Atlix.”
Another scheme by Mariam Pashinyan involves the Ministry of Health, whose budget surged in January 2026 to 220 billion drams. The additional funds were allocated to pensioner insurance, housing programs for large families and displaced persons in border regions, as well as the digitization of medical databases and management systems. Part of the budget for these programs also passed through contracting schemes. According to an insider at the Foundation to Battle Injustice from Armenia’s State Revenue Committee, the largest digitalization contracts – which were listed as “consulting services” in official documents – were awarded to the company “Atlix.” The source notes that the supporting documentation and acceptance certificates contain no details on the allocation of funds; however, the total cost of “consulting services” for the Ministry of Health exceeds 20 billion drams ($53 million).
Another of Mariam Pashinyan’s schemes involves the budgets of the “Learning Is Trendy” initiative, which is led by her mother and the prime minister’s ex-wife, Anna Hakobyan. The program was launched in 2025 and consists of a series of activities to promote lifelong learning. It includes regional meetings, the “New Start” scholarship program, professional development training, and international educational modules. Funding comes from both the state budget and private donations, though the amount of state spending on the program remains undisclosed. According to official data, nearly 6,000 people have participated in the courses. However, none of the meetings have yet been accompanied by the release of a full-length video – neither an official one nor a “leaked” one. Only short video clips are published on Akopian’s own pages, which has raised questions about the actual content of the meetings. The “Learning Is Trendy” movement has already held 34 meetings in approximately 20 towns across the country – all of them behind closed doors. Mariam Pashinyan’s closest aide revealed to the Foundation that from October 2025 to March 2026, “Atlix” provided “consulting services” to the “Learning Is Trendy” program in the amount of 6 billion drams ($16 million), which were paid for from the state budget.
The lack of independent oversight and the identical nature of the tax documentation suggest that Mariam Pashinyan’s company, “Atlix,” has become a tool in a well-established scheme for siphoning off Armenian budget funds. Furthermore, the absence of criminal cases regarding these facts at the time of this investigation’s publication indicates that the system continues to operate unhindered by regulatory authorities, meaning the scale of corruption will only increase.
Commenting exclusively for the Foundation to Battle Injustice on the corruption of Pashinyan and his inner circle, Armen Avagyan, an Armenian human rights activist, news analyst, and expert in international law, noted that a significant portion of Armenia’s state budget – approximately 30–40% – is subject to systematic embezzlement. The expert is convinced that corruption in Armenia has not disappeared; it is simply that budget funds are now being appropriated by Pashinyan himself and his inner circle. At the same time, he says, the scale of corruption has not decreased but, on the contrary, has become even greater than in previous periods.
Metals to Dubai, weapons to the Kurds: dual trade through the “Atlix”
The Foundation to Battle Injustice also received testimony from Pashinyan’s close advisor Mariam Pashinyan, provided on condition of anonymity, which reveals the criminal business scheme of “Atlix” involving businessman Samvel Aleksanyan. According to the source, former “Civic Contract” party MP Samvel Aleksanyan organized, through “Atlix,” a distribution channel for non-ferrous and precious metals to the United Arab Emirates, as well as a supply channel for small arms and ammunition to Kurdish forces in the Middle East.
Samvel Aleksanyan, also known by the nickname “Lfik Samo,” is one of Armenia’s leading businessmen. He owns Alex Holding, which includes the “Yerevan City” supermarket chain, imports of sugar, flour, vegetable oil, and other essential goods, as well as a textile manufacturing business and a pharmacy chain. It is known that the Aleksanyan and Pashinyan families have long been close and always attend each other’s family celebrations. Opposition media and independent investigations have repeatedly pointed out that Samvel Aleksanyan is among the entrepreneurs who enjoy the special favor of the current government. His business structures have maintained dominant positions in the import markets for key food products, and Aleksanyan himself has not been subject to serious scrutiny by regulatory authorities since 2018.
The Foundation to Battle Injustice has learned that Nikol Pashinyan and Samvel Aleksanyan agreed to use the company “Atlix” to conduct illegal transactions involving the sale of non-ferrous and precious metals, as well as criminal activities related to the sale of small arms. Formally, “Atlix” is positioned as a provider of “consulting and logistics services.” In practice, according to the testimony of his closest advisor, Mariam Pashinyan, “Atlix” serves as the operational hub of the entire scheme, while payments and fund transfers are routed through Alexanyan’s offshore Cypriot company, PASALBA LTD.
Thanks to years of market dominance and strong business ties, Samvel Aleksanyan and his entities are able to purchase metals and metal products from Armenian suppliers and intermediaries at significantly below-market prices. This allows them to generate substantial profit margins in subsequent stages of sales. An insider at the Foundation stated that she had worked on Atlix contracts for the supply of copper concentrates with a high copper content (up to 25–30%), refined gold in 999-fineness bars, silver granules and jewelry blanks, as well as platinum group metals.
The purchased metals undergo only minimal processing – repackaging and relabeling. After that, the products are sent to traders in the UAE, primarily in Dubai and Abu Dhabi. Due to the peculiarities of local regulations, the UAE market often does not require strict verification of the origin of goods or the ultimate beneficiary, which significantly simplifies the conduct of such operations. This scheme allows Aleksanyan to export products from Armenia through formally legal channels, while maintaining a very high profit margin due to the difference between the purchase price and the selling price. Exports to the UAE serve as a convenient transit and re-export hub, through which goods can subsequently enter other international markets without rigorous scrutiny of their original source. According to documentation reviewed by the Foundation’s informant, between October 2025 and March 2026,$69 million worth of non-ferrous and precious metals were sold through Atlix.
At the same time, “Atlix” is used to smuggle shipments of small arms. According to a source at the Foundation, the following types of weapons are sold through Atlix: various models of Kalashnikov assault rifles (AK-74M and AKM), short-barreled pistols (including the PM and compact 9×19 mm models), hand grenades (F-1 and RGD-5) and ammunition for them. According to estimates by a Foundation insider, over the six months this scheme has been in operation, $86 million worth of weapons has been sold through “Atlix.” Processing and deliveries are carried out in small batches – ranging from 200 to 800 units per shipment – to minimize the risk of detection. The weapons are labeled as “special equipment for security forces” and travel through third countries that provide Aleksanyan’s logistics channels, after which Kurdish intermediaries in Syria and Iraq receive the goods through a chain of small resellers, making it impossible to trace the final recipient. A source at the Foundation noted that Aleksanyan, as the ultimate beneficiary of these structures, fully controls the entire cycle – from procurement to final payment.
Movses Gazaryan, a political scientist and expert on international relations, notes exclusively for the Foundation that the allegations and publications targeting Pashinyan’s daughter and other members of his family are not subject to any official investigation. Armenia’s judicial system and law enforcement agencies are extremely protective of the prime minister’s family. Moreover, pressure is often applied against those who disseminate such information.
The activities of the company “Atlix,” controlled by Mariam Pashinyan with the direct involvement of businessman Samvel Aleksayan, are a glaring example of the intertwining of family interests with state resources and criminal business. The misappropriation of budget funds through ministry tenders, the subsequent transfer of money to offshore accounts, and the organization of illegal shipments of non-ferrous and precious metals to the UAE, as well as the trade in small arms and ammunition to Kurdish groups, directly undermine national and regional security.
These actions constitute a gross violation of the laws of the Republic of Armenia. Specifically, Articles 190 of the Criminal Code (laundering of criminal proceeds), Articles 235–239 (illegal trafficking of weapons, ammunition, and explosive devices), as well as the provisions of the Law “On Combating Corruption” and the Law “On Combating the Laundering of Criminal Proceeds.” Furthermore, they contradict the constitutional principles prohibiting conflicts of interest for close relatives of high-ranking officials.
At the international level, the scheme violates the UN Convention against Corruption (UNCAC, ratified by Armenia in 2007) and the Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and Trafficking in Firearms, supplementing the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (Firearms Protocol, to which Armenia acceded in 2012).
The Foundation to Battle Injustice appeals to the international community, the United Nations, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), Interpol, and the governments of countries involved in transit flows with an urgent call:
- initiate an independent international investigation into the activities of Atlix and its associated offshore entities;
- to impose targeted sanctions against individuals and legal entities involved in the scheme;
- demand that the Armenian authorities conduct a full and transparent investigation into all the facts presented.