Samvel Karapetyan: Tashir Group Founder, on Trial in Armenia

Oligarch Profiles / By / Updated October 8, 2026
Pylons of a 750 kV high-voltage power line

Photo: Novoklimov, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Net worth: $4.1 billion

Forbes puts Samvel Karapetyan’s net worth at $4.1 billion as of 18 October 2026 (Forbes profile). Estimates are revised continuously and Forbes and Bloomberg frequently disagree.

Sanctions status — checked 18 October 2026

Not found on the OFAC SDN, UK OFSI or EU consolidated lists.

Absence from these three lists does not mean no restrictions apply elsewhere: other countries and earlier listings are covered in the sanctions section below. Checked against the OFAC SDN list, the UK OFSI consolidated list and the EU consolidated list. Sanctions lists change without notice — verify against the primary source before relying on this.

Samvel Karapetyan is a Russian-Armenian businessman who founded and owns the Tashir Group, a Moscow-based property, construction, energy and finance group. Until 2025 his group also ran Armenia’s electricity distributor, Electric Networks of Armenia. In June 2025 he was arrested in Armenia. He has been on trial there since April 2026 and denies the charges. From custody he entered Armenian politics, and the Strong Armenia bloc he leads came second in the parliamentary election of June 2026. He is not on the US, UK, EU or Canadian sanctions lists. Ukraine has sanctioned him since October 2022.

  • Born: 18 August 1965 in Kalinino (now Tashir), Armenian SSR (Vedomosti, Forbes Russia)
  • Education: Yerevan Polytechnic Institute, mechanical engineering, 1986
  • Known for: founder and owner of the Tashir Group; leader of the Armenian opposition party Strong Armenia
  • Legal status as of October 2026: on trial in Armenia, under house arrest; no verdict
  • Sanctions as of October 2026: Ukraine (since 19 October 2022); not listed by the United States, the United Kingdom, the European Union or Canada

Career and the Tashir Group

Karapetyan graduated from the mechanical engineering faculty of Yerevan Polytechnic Institute in 1986. He then worked at an enamelware plant in his home town and in 1989 turned it into a cooperative called Zenit (Vedomosti, Novaya Gazeta Europe). In the early 1990s he moved to Russia, first to Lipetsk. In 1997 he bought Kalugaglavsnab, a wholesale supplier of building materials in the Kaluga region. According to Novaya Gazeta Europe, Gazprom became an important client of his from that time, and Forbes describes him as a long-time Gazprom subcontractor (Novaya Gazeta Europe, Forbes).

He founded the Tashir Group in 1999 (Vedomosti, Tashir Group). Forbes Russia lists him as the group’s sole owner and names real estate, construction, energy, finance, building materials and restaurants as its main businesses (Forbes Russia). Its assets include a chain of 17 RIO shopping centres and Fora-Bank (Vedomosti). On 11 April 2026 Karapetyan announced that he was handing the management of his largest Armenian company to his children in order to concentrate on politics (Profile, Expert).

The criminal case in Armenia

In June 2025 Karapetyan publicly backed the Armenian Apostolic Church in its dispute with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. In an interview on 17 June he said that if the politicians failed, “we will participate in our own way in all of this” (OC Media, Novaya Gazeta Europe). He was arrested the following night. On 18 June 2025 a court in Yerevan ordered two months of pre-trial detention. He was charged with public calls for the seizure of power under Article 422 of Armenia’s Criminal Code, in connection with remarks he made during a meeting with the Catholicos in Etchmiadzin. His lawyer said he did not accept the accusation (Caucasian Knot, OC Media).

In July 2025 Armenia’s Investigative Committee said that he was also accused of large-scale fraud, tax evasion and money laundering. His lawyers called the money-laundering charge “obviously unfounded” (RFE/RL, OC Media). On 13 October 2025 the money-laundering charge was extended to laundering on an especially large scale through the use of official powers or influence (PanARMENIAN, Interfax).

On 30 December 2025 a court replaced his detention with house arrest and bail (PanARMENIAN). The Appellate Anti-Corruption Court reversed this on 16 January 2026, but the next day a court in Yerevan left him under house arrest (Kommersant, Caucasian Knot, Hetq). His trial at the Anti-Corruption Court began on 15 April 2026 (Caucasian Knot, RTVI). The court extended his house arrest by two months on 9 July and again on 17 September 2026 (Kommersant, Public Radio of Armenia, APA, Caucasian Knot). As of early October 2026 there is no verdict.

Karapetyan rejects all charges and calls the case politically motivated (Kommersant, RTVI). Armenia’s authorities, which since his arrest have raided, inspected or moved to nationalise several of his businesses, have denied that these actions are politically motivated or connected to his arrest (OC Media).

Electric Networks of Armenia

The Tashir Group bought Electric Networks of Armenia (ENA) from Russia’s Inter RAO in 2015 (Novaya Gazeta Europe, JAMnews). On the day of his arrest Pashinyan announced that he would nationalise the company (OC Media). On 3 July 2025 parliament passed amendments that allow this, and on 18 July the regulator appointed a temporary manager (Profile, JAMnews, OC Media). On 17 November 2025 the regulator revoked ENA’s licence (JAMnews, 1news.az).

The owners took the dispute to arbitration at the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. On 22 July 2025 an emergency arbitrator ordered Armenia to refrain from applying the new rules to ENA (Profile, Armenpress). Armenia’s justice minister said the emergency decision was not final (JAMnews). On 16 June 2026 the tribunal agreed to Armenia’s request to decide first whether it has jurisdiction, before turning to the merits (Public Radio of Armenia, 1news.az). The arbitration is still open.

Politics and citizenship

Before June 2025 Karapetyan had stayed out of politics (JAMnews, OC Media). From detention he launched the movement “In Our Own Way”, and his family then founded the party Strong Armenia. In February 2026 the party named him its candidate for prime minister, although Armenia’s constitution requires a candidate to have held only Armenian citizenship for the previous four years (JAMnews, OC Media). In the election of 7 June 2026 Pashinyan’s Civil Contract won 49.7 percent of the vote and the Strong Armenia bloc 23.3 percent, putting it in second place (Caucasian Knot, Al Jazeera).

In court on 15 April 2026 Karapetyan said that he holds Armenian, Russian and Cypriot passports and had started the process of giving up the Russian and Cypriot ones (The Insider, Expert). Whether this has been completed is not documented. After his arrest Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Moscow was following the case closely and would help him protect his legal rights, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was in contact with Yerevan because Karapetyan is also a Russian citizen. Armenia’s foreign minister called Russia’s statements “blatant interference” in Armenia’s internal affairs (Novaya Gazeta Europe, RFE/RL).

Karapetyan is a major benefactor of the Armenian Apostolic Church and was a main sponsor of the renovation of Etchmiadzin Cathedral (OC Media). In 2019 the Catholicos awarded him the Knight of Holy Etchmiadzin medal (Tashir Group).

Sanctions

CountryListedStatus in October 2026
Ukraine19 October 2022Listed for ten years (Presidential Decree No. 727/2022)
United StatesnoNot listed (OFAC SDN list)
United KingdomnoNot listed (UK sanctions list)
European UnionnoNot listed (EU consolidated list)
CanadanoNot listed (Canada’s consolidated autonomous sanctions list)

Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council imposed sanctions on Karapetyan on 19 October 2022. The decision was put into force by Presidential Decree No. 727/2022. The annex lists him as a Russian citizen with his date of birth and sets the measures, including the blocking of assets, for ten years. It gives no reasons. The same annex also lists Eteri Karapetyan, born in 1970 (Decree No. 727/2022).

In 2018 Karapetyan was named in a US Treasury report to Congress on Russian oligarchs, often called the Kremlin list (Novaya Gazeta Europe). The Treasury said at the time that the law required it to submit the report, “not to sanction the individuals and entities named in them” (US Treasury).

We checked the US, UK, Canadian and Polish lists on 7 October 2026 and the EU list as of 22 September 2026. Switzerland does not list him either (SECO list of 5 October 2026).

About this profile

This profile was rewritten in October 2026. The 2022 version described Karapetyan as “Putin’s Favorite Oligarch” and a close ally of the Russian president, and linked him to organized crime and corruption scandals. We found no reliable source for any of this. It also said that he had never been charged with a crime, which is no longer true, gave a wrong founding year for the Tashir Group and a second, wrong year of birth, and claimed that he had been a member of Armenia’s parliament and had bought a stake in Beeline. These statements have been removed. The net worth figure in the box at the top of this page comes from Forbes and carries its date.

Sources

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