Expert: Two Forbes-listed billionaires educated in Armenia are both in detention

A constitutional law expert in Armenia has called attention to a striking pattern involving the only two Armenian billionaires who were both born and educated in Armenia, Samvel Karapetyan and Ruben Vardanyan, stressing that both are now imprisoned for political reasons.

Gohar Meloyan said that apart from Karapetyan and Vardanyan, “there is simply no other example” of a Forbes-ranked billionaire who both hails from Armenia and attended school there. “The rest were either not born in Armenia or left at a very early age, without going through the Armenian educational system,” she added.

In remarks posted online on Monday, Meloyan described the detentions of the two businessmen as “exclusively political”. Karapetyan, the founder of the Tashir Group, is currently held in Yerevan, while Vardanyan, an investment banker and former Artsakh state minister, is imprisoned in Baku after being detained by Azerbaijani authorities in 2023.

“Both men had a chance to live peacefully in other countries, but are now deprived of their freedom for the sake of the Armenian people, Armenian statehood and the Armenian Apostolic Church,” she said, calling for the immediate release of all Armenian political prisoners.