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The misconduct in Gazprom Armenia has been found during the planned audit, State Revenue Committee (SRC) Chairman David Ananyan told reporters on Thursday, referring to the criminal investigation into the subsidiary of Russian gas giant Gazprom.

He says a few months ago the committee published a list of taxpayers subject to inspections based on risk assessment, with Gazprom Armenia on the list.

“During the inspections, the tax agents have discovered certain information that has been provided to the SRC Investigative Department, with a report made to conduct further inspections. A criminal case has been opened at the moment upon the inspector’s decision,” he detailed.

The tax chief stressed ‘filing a criminal case isn’t a verdict yet,’ while it allows agents to take certain actions impossible to take on the sidelines of the inspections.

Commenting on possible gas price reduction after the completion of criminal investigation, he stressed it is too early to talk about it, since the case requires a thorough analysis and calculations.

The SRC said on Wednesday that it has revealed a major tax evasion scam in Gazprom Armenia.

The inspections have found that Gazprom Armenia presented fake figures in the value-added tax (VAT) and income tax reports to tax authorities in 2016 and 2017, due to which the company’s tax duties were reported several billion drams lower.

The comparative analysis on the volumes of supplied natural gas to self-service gas stations also testify to the fraud allegations, the SRC said in a statement.

According to the committee, Gazprom Armenia’s volume of loss in the distribution network reduced by an average of over 3 times from June to July 2018 compared to January-May of the same year. Meantime, the research data shows that the company’s gas supply volumes to the filling stations rose sharply by 37% in June-September from the first five months of 2018.

A criminal case has been launched under Article 205 (Part 2) of Armenia’s Criminal Code – evasion from taxes, duties or other mandatory payments.

Gazprom Armenia has denied any wrongdoing.