5 Held in Extortion, Kidnap Plot

Five people with reputed ties to Armenian organized crime were arrested Tuesday in an extortion and kidnap plot against a fellow countryman who was seeking political asylum in the United States.

A federal indictment unsealed after their arrests accused the suspects, all from the Los Angeles area, of using cohorts in Moscow to carry out the plot against businessman Armen Karakhanyan.

“Although the methodology of the crimes alleged in this case may be standard practice among members of Armenian organized crime when in Armenia, they are not acceptable in the United States,” said Ronald Iden, who heads the FBI field office in Los Angeles.

Prosecutors said Karakhanyan arrived in the United States last year seeking political asylum. He told immigration officials that he had been jailed in Armenia for speaking out against the government.

A once well-to-do businessman in Armenia, he settled in the Los Angeles area. Soon afterward, prosecutors said, he was contacted by members of the ring, who told him he was now living in “Little Armenia” and that he would face the same troubles he had encountered in Armenia unless he helped them in a bogus check-cashing scheme.

Ordered to cash a large, fraudulent check drawn against a Spanish bank, Karakhanyan went into hiding in Northern California, authorities said. The ring members immediately suspected that he had fled to Moscow, where his wife, Elmira, was living at the time.

Prosecutors said the suspects arranged for associates in Russia to kidnap Karakhanyan, threatening to kill him unless he returned to the United States and helped them in their check-cashing scheme.

A few days later, authorities said, several unidentified men invaded his wife’s apartment in Moscow and abducted a man they thought was Karakhanyan. They were wrong. It was a cousin.

In several subsequent telephone calls to Karakhanyan’s wife, prosecutors said, ring members threatened to kill the cousin unless their demands were met.

At that point, Karakhanyan contacted the FBI. Under the agency’s protection, he returned to Los Angeles and resumed his dealings with the suspects.

According to the indictment, Karakhanyan was told “there is no escaping,” that the ring knew where to find his relatives and that he now owed them $144,000.

During one heated encounter, one suspect slapped Karakhanyan on the face a few times and threatened to shoot him in the head because he had fallen behind on the payment schedule, the indictment said.

Despite the threats, Karakhanyan continued to meet with the suspects from March until this month, when the U.S. attorney’s office presented its case to a federal grand jury.

Arrested Tuesday were Ashot Manukyan, 47, and Hovannes Igarian, 38, both of Los Feliz; Sousanna Ounousian, 38, and her husband, Pogos Ketchedjian, 38, both of Van Nuys; and Hovsep Keshishian, 35, of Glendale.

All five were charged with conspiring to extort money from Karakhanyan after he contacted the FBI. Manukyan and Igarian also were accused of conspiring to take hostages and receiving proceeds from the extortion plot. If convicted, they face sentences ranging from 20 years to life in prison.

An FBI spokesman said efforts are underway to track down the men who carried out the kidnapping in Russia.

The FBI was assisted in its investigation by the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Glendale Police Department and Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.