“The federal prosecutor for South Dakota has decided to reopen dozens of murders committed among local Native Americans that were never solved, the Los Angeles Times reports. Prosecutor Brendan Johnson has signed an agreement with a local private investigator to investigate these crimes.” “New details have emerged in the divorce of a former Hollywood couple: it turns out Amber hired a well-known private investigator who has worked with Arnold Schwarzenegger, Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone and other stars.” “Previously unpublished stories about Agatha Christie’s detective Hercule Poirot will be released in early September this year”… The daily news feed now has a local item too: since 2021, the Republic of Armenia has had its first and only private investigator’s office — Gabrielyan & Partners Detective Bureau, whose founding director is Hayk Gabrielyan. The bureau is a member of the World Association of Detectives and coordinates work in the countries of the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Its services include verifying and reporting on organisations registered in Armenia and some 160 other countries, and gathering and reporting information on individuals… Aravot spoke with Hayk Gabrielyan, founding director of Gabrielyan & Partners Detective Bureau.
— Mr. Gabrielyan, the first time I saw a “private investigator” was in 2012, at a court case in Yerevan. It was a former National Security Service officer, Vladimir Turabyan, who had been hired by a woman to follow her husband. The court was in a difficult position, because Turabyan said: there is no law, but there is demand, and in a few years you will see people turning to private investigators. You founded what is currently the first and only private investigator’s office in Armenia. Under what legal framework do you operate?
— Thank you for the chance to give an interview to my favourite newspaper. Since independence, Aravot has been with me every day — I personally bought it every morning on my way to work, and I am grateful for this honour. The person you mentioned had violated the Law on Operational and Investigative Activity: he stalked, took photographs and entered private property — things that are still prohibited by law. We founded our company in 2021, and our first principle was to observe the fundamental provisions of Armenia’s Criminal Code, Criminal Procedure Code, Civil Code, the Constitution — the Fundamental Law — and the Law on Personal Data Protection. We do not intrude into private life. Some information is accessible only to law enforcement.
— You operate, but there is still no law. Do you raise the issue?
— A draft Law on Private Investigative Activity has been put forward several times. There is an interesting draft that I worked on with our team, and we will try to move it forward. Our firm’s key mission is to make private investigation a profession as much in demand as those of doctors, journalists, lawyers and police officers, as it is in any country in the world. We took American legislation as our model — the best there is: a single general law plus state-level regulations. As far as we could, our team tried to include the best legal provisions from every state, so as not to cause harm. Even once the law is passed, people may ask why someone has come into their lives. In the USA, the country with the best investigative traditions, an investigator can never go as far as the bedroom: what’s inside is considered private, and only the state may enter it, and only by court order.
— Over these four years, do you have statistics on how many people have approached you, from which circles and with what requests?
— Most people come to us about marital infidelity. In their view, a private investigator is someone who goes straight out looking for lovers and mistresses. Hundreds of people from all over the world have contacted us. Consultations are free: anyone can come to us, we will discuss it and listen to them. If the problem is outside our remit, we naturally won’t take it on; if it doesn’t contradict Armenian law, we carry out the order and provide the service. We also provide services outside Armenia. As Vice President of the International Association that regulates the work of detectives in the fifteen former Soviet republics, we can, through partner organisations in Armenians’ favourite holiday destinations — Cyprus, Italy, Spain — provide services and gather information within those countries’ legal frameworks. In Armenia our clients come for corporate security: employee integrity checks and competitive business investigations. Armenian business has received us very positively; for a year now we have been members of the Mantashyants Business Club. They see us as a company that supports business.
— Mr. Gabrielyan, do you have enough resources? Who are your company’s members and staff? Don’t the National Security Service and law enforcement look “jealously” at the bureau’s “alternative investigations”?
— We have no one from the NSS; everyone comes from the police. Jealousy is out of the question. Our work is closer to police functions; we work with state bodies and in certain cases turn to the NSS, the Interior Ministry and other law enforcement agencies… The NSS has its own database and we have ours. We have access to billions of databases around the world. Sherlock Holmes or Commissaire Maigret walked and ran around; times have changed and there is no need to walk. This tool, which I call “the devil’s tool”, requires no physical work — it has become part of an intellectual business. By the way, we have a cooperation agreement with the Pinkerton detective agency; they work with Latvia, Ukraine and us. (The agency, founded 150 years ago, once saved Abraham Lincoln’s life — Lincoln was shot when he had declined the agency’s services.)
— For us journalists and others who do intellectual research, artificial intelligence — ChatGPT — is an important tool. Do you see it as a “reliable partner”?
— Yes, we use it; I’ve made AI my “toy for idle moments”. I have managed to make ChatGPT answer “Hayk Gabrielyan” when asked who Armenia’s first private investigator is.
— But the Armenian-language information base seems poor in some respects.
— Do you know why? Users ask many more questions in English and Russian, so it generates more information. You can ask it at night or during the day; it doesn’t ask for bread, doesn’t get tired, is available any time, doesn’t say “I’m going to a relative’s wedding, I’ll answer when I’m back”, and answers your questions for free… In English and Russian it’s fairly well developed; within five years it will take a serious position and quickly fill information gaps — it can train and reposition itself. Some professions will disappear, but doctors, journalists, accountants, detectives and teachers will remain for now.
— There are ads on lampposts, walls and List.am: “I’m a private investigator, I’ll do this or that”… Are these impostors, or a “trap” for you?
— If you search List.am, they are no longer there. Whenever something like this appears anywhere, we monitor the internet, contact those responsible for the website and the ads are removed. There are none now. It’s fraud, a trap. A detective should make himself known through his work, not through a notice on a wall.
— Have you tried contacting the impostors?
— We’ve tried calling to find out what they do; they disappear and go underground. We fight against it. There is good perfume and fake perfume, good medicine and fake medicine. A fake detective is an evil, because you don’t know who is on the other side.
— On social media, celebrities are not immune to threats and blackmail from people with fake photos. Has the bureau received complaints about such threats?
— There are very many such requests; people turn to us, the police, law enforcement and the NSS to have a criminal case opened, and we try to find the culprits. Sometimes we succeed, if there isn’t a fake platform behind the fake user. There are websites where you can get an email address or a virtual phone number that disappears ten minutes later. People hide their address. Through international partners we try at least to close or block such accounts and we contact the social platforms. As for TikTok, which generates the most complaints, I believe TikTok should be banned in Armenia — it’s a catastrophe. The country’s leaders and celebrities follow the trend and go there because it’s so accessible: you tap your phone and off you go…
— How do you supervise the colleague you assign to a case? Does the bureau have a code of ethics?
— As members of the World Association of Detectives, we follow its code of ethics. On 1–10 September this year we will attend the gathering in Chicago. A detective must not discriminate against a client on political, racial, ethnic or gender grounds… If someone of another faith comes to you, you have no right to break even a sub-clause. The core staff is our Gabrielyan family: my brother is a reserve police colonel and a former police chief, and my son is a law student. The three of us are the only specialised detectives with professional training.
— Where did you get your training?
— At the Higher School of Private Detectives in St Petersburg.
— Do you plan to run courses or create guidelines at the Police Academy or university law faculties?
— Yes, once the law is passed we plan a six-month training programme and retraining. There are people who worked in law enforcement but have no detective specialisation. We will work openly with any system. I intend to write a book — not about the life of detective Hayk Gabrielyan or about our bureau, but an encyclopedia in several sections. I’m revealing this plan for the first time, to Aravot. The book will include encyclopedic information: what a detective is and what each country’s law permits; the third section will be advice on how to live safely; and the last will collect every possible joke and humorous story about private investigators.
— In your observation, what is the crime situation in Armenia today? Are there organised criminal groups?
— There are no criminal groups in Armenia. There used to be. Today the underworld bosses are gone — they keep quiet and stay in their own territory. Underworld figures from all over the world have gathered in Turkey; it’s fertile ground — from Russia, Georgia, Armenia…
— Where does your funding come from?
— The fees depend on the type of order. There are fixed rates; in Armenia they are fixed, while gathering information abroad naturally depends on local pricing, the type of service and what is possible — Italy and the Emirates have one price, Russia another. Everything we have achieved has been thanks to my initial investment. To raise our profile, the stereotype that a detective should stay invisible has changed. There are world-class detectives who run blogs, give lectures and help people. Today’s detective can’t work crouching in hiding — times have changed.
Interview by Ruzan MINASYAN
Aravot daily
05.04.2025
Read at the source (in Armenian): “A fake detective is an evil, because you don’t know who is on the other side”: Hayk Gabrielyan