There are a lot of twists and turns on this one, so bear with me, because this has got to be the craziest Covid scam story of the last two years.
Richard Ayvazyan and Marietta Terabelian of Los Angeles have three teenage kids and a dog. When the government announced that it was going to flood us with Covid stimmies to save the economy (which totally worked!), Richard and Marietta decided to get in on the action.
The couple created 151 fake businesses and raked in $18 MILLION in relief funds, starting with applications just 3 days after the Covid relief bill was announced in early 2020.
Like most dumb criminals, they didn't try to be discreet. Instead, they lived it up.
...the millions received were used for down payments on luxury homes and to buy 'gold coins, diamonds, jewelry, luxury watches, fine imported furnishings, designer handbags, clothing, and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle,' the US attorney's office said.
Because of their lavish living, it was beyond easy for the authorities to catch them. Last June, they were charged and placed under house arrest in their $3 million palace.
In August 2021, they cut their ankle bracelets, however, and left a note that their three kids found:
While I am writing this our tears are dripping on our breakfast table. Without saying too much, we both love you more than anything in this world... We will be together again one day. This is not a goodbye but a brief break from each other.
The day that they cut their monitors, Marietta had been seen throwing a grocery bag with $451,000 of cash into the bushes in their backyard.
By the time the FBI arrived, the couple was gone.
It's okay though, at least they brought their dog on the lam!
The swindlers soon fled with their black dog to Lisbon and there boarded a private jet to Tivat, a luxury coastal town in Montenegro, the Los Angeles Times reports.
They forged passports to pretend they were Mexicans called Roberto Niko De Leon and Nataly Rose Perez Garcia and spent lavishly in the Monte Carlo of the Balkans.
That's right. They landed in Montenegro and decided to just keep living the good life. Who needs to lay low when you're international fugitives, anyway??
For nearly A YEAR, the couple avoided the authorities... somehow.
Which really makes you wonder: If sloppy criminals who are big spenders can dodge the FBI and Interpol for a year, what have the smart criminals gotten away with over the last two years??
They arrived on September 3 and rented an apartment in the Porto Montenegro marine, where dozens of superyachts owned by Russian oligarchs are moored.
You want to know just how dumb this couple is? They shipped TWO OF THE CARS THEY BOUGHT WITH FRAUD MONEY FROM CALIFORNIA.
The couple had a BMW shipped over from Los Angeles, still with their California plates, and bought a Range Rover too.
And yet, no one caught them.
This is where they were living.
Yeah, not exactly low-key.
They made an impression on locals as well. Basically, they did the opposite of what every spy movie tells you about avoiding being caught and somehow got away with it for months and months.
The pair attracted attention due to their ostentatious spending and foreign accents, with one local remarking that they were known as generous tippers, acknowledging that those who earned their money are rarely so generous.
They were also able to open bank accounts under different aliases, "Iuliia Zhadko" and "Viktoria Kauichko," and Richard even opened a legitimate real estate business.
Meanwhile, the police knocked down the door of Richard's mom in Encino and investigated leads in his native home of Armenia. Back in California, his brother Artur and sister-in-law Tamara Dadyan were also arrested for their role in helping with the scam. It sounds like Tamara snitched on the brothers and was sentenced to 10 years.
She was to report to prison on January 28, 2022, but never arrived. Instead, she left her own teenage daughters and hightailed it to Europe.
Dadyan traveled with a fake British passport under the name of Angela Adamos, and showed up at Vienna airport on February 9 destined for Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro.
It is absolutely astounding how this half-bit crime family totally punked the FBI, probably because the FBI is too busy playing defense for Hunter Biden's crimes, setting up kidnappings for governors, and investigating grandmas who trespassed in the Capitol.
They finally got their act together when Richard logged into the bank account of one of the fake businesses he had set up.
The dude apparently didn't even use a VPN or try to travel elsewhere to log in so they couldn't find him!
Justin Palmerton, the FBI agent in charge of the fraud case and the manhunt, got in touch with his Montenegrin counterparts who found the internet address and home where the fugitives were living.
The local police showed up...
...and nearly lost Richard and Marietta again.
The couple were raided on February 22 but escaped through the back door when they promised to retrieve their residency papers.
The police found the couple's dog with a dog walker they had hired, then managed to track down Marietta in a hair salon where she was getting extensions done. She apparently had a fake British passport on her as well.
Meanwhile, Richard used his own fake British passport to check into a hotel 30 minutes away. The local police, with more competence than the FBI, managed to track him down and found him with another woman, who ended up being the missing Tamara!
All three have been prosecuted in Montenegro for using the forge documents and the Justice Ministry is currently considering a US extradition request.
Richard has requested political asylum, and I gotta say, if he gets it folks, this is the luckiest dumb criminal I have ever seen in my entire life.
P.S. Now check out our latest video 👇
