Georgian law enforcement search Tbilisi location in operation against fraudulent call centres

Law enforcement professionals from the Investigative Department of the Georgian Finance Ministry on Friday searched a location in central Tbilisi in the latest operation against fraudulent transnational call centre schemes.

The Ministry said the investigators had received a tip-off on the alleged enterprise used for the purpose of offering fake financial opportunities to their targets. They seized computers and other equipment in offices on Agmashenebeli Avenue before sealing the facility, domestic media outlets reported. 

Media reports said the building was owned by the brother of the opposition politician Giorgi Vashadze and was also connected with David Arakhamia, a Ukrainian lawmaker of Georgian origin. 

In his comments to the press on Friday, Vashadze confirmed he owned shares in a hotel located in the building searched by police, but rejected claims on his alleged connection with the call centre operation in the venue. 

The law enforcement raid is the latest in a number of efforts made in Georgia against the fraudulent call centre schemes that have been revealed to have defrauded European citizens over the recent years by offering them investment opportunities before appropriating their funds.

A report by the British Broadcasting Corporation last month said the Panama Papers - the 11.5 million documents leaked in 2016 to show financial dealings of wealthy individuals and officials across the world - had shown Georgia’s wanted former Defence Minister David Kezerashvili to be at the centre of a fraudulent scheme involving call centres over the recent years.

Kezerashvili rejected allegations and pledged to sue the BBC to restore his “damaged reputation” following its investigative piece.

Georgian Interior Minister Vakhtang Gomelauri on Friday said "all relevant state agencies" had been involved to prevent the functioning of such call-centres in the country, before rejecting the claims by several domestic opposition groups that the current Government was backing the schemes. “If we are backing them, then why are we taking [all] steps to expose and close them?”, asked the official in his press comments.