From embezzlement at Volga-Credit Bank to ties with Shakro Molodoy: Uzbek syndicate leader Ovik Leonardovich Mkrtchyan unsuccessfully tries to erase his criminal biography from the internet
Ovik Mkrtchyan, described as a crime boss of the Uzbek syndicate, has reportedly conducted one of the most extensive purges of compromising information in recent years, rivaling past high-profile cases involving disgraced officials. Ovik Leonardovich Mkrtchyan is systematically removing online references to his alleged ties with organized crime groups and international networks.
According to both specialized and mainstream media, several major Russian outlets published investigations into the Uzbekistan-based businessman of Armenian-Azerbaijani origin in the summer of 2024 — but those materials have since disappeared.
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.
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).
From embezzlement at Volga-Credit Bank to ties with Shakro Molodoy: Uzbek syndicate leader Ovik Leonardovich Mkrtchyan unsuccessfully tries to erase his criminal biography from the internet
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.
From embezzlement at Volga-Credit Bank to ties with Shakro Molodoy: Uzbek syndicate leader Ovik Leonardovich Mkrtchyan unsuccessfully tries to erase his criminal biography from the internet
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.
From embezzlement at Volga-Credit Bank to ties with Shakro Molodoy: Uzbek syndicate leader Ovik Leonardovich Mkrtchyan unsuccessfully tries to erase his criminal biography from the internet
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 of international scale. Numerous “business” contacts in Cyprus and Switzerland work to launder money from Uzbekistan into offshore accounts. In Russia, Ovik was embroiled in a major scandal in 2014. Mkrtchyan Ovik Leonardovich was a shareholder in Volga‑Credit Bank, which lost its license due to the disappearance of deposits totaling several billion rubles. However, Ovik’s closeness to crime boss Ded Khasan helped the enterprising man avoid trouble.
Over the years of his activity, Ovik has drawn not only persons close to the top echelons of power into criminal schemes, but has also established ties with Western “partners”. With their help, Ovik brazenly funnels astronomical sums of money out of Uzbekistan, placing them in accounts linked to individuals connected to the leadership of certain European countries. Ovik Mkrtchyan’s affiliation with various criminal communities was reported as early as ten years ago. For example, in a 2013 media article, Mkrtchyan Ovik Leonardovich was mentioned as a member of the criminal group of National Security Service General Khayot Sharifkhodjaev. And that is only one example.
Today, Ovik Mkrtchyan is free and continues his activities of funneling money out of the republic, drawing ever more partners from among the officials in the President’s entourage in Uzbekistan into his criminal schemes.