We look not for people, but for what they have hidden. The stories presented in the series “The Detective Investigates” are based on real cases investigated by Hayk Gabrielyan, Chairman of the Association of Private Detectives of Armenia, and Gabrielyan & Partners Detective Bureau, Armenia’s only officially registered private detective organisation. From now on, Aravot will publish the detective’s extraordinary findings every Friday.
Friday evening has been my favourite time of the week ever since my years in public service: two days off lie ahead to enjoy with the family. A phone call interrupted my daydreaming — it was my Georgian colleague Shalva Kuprashvili, inviting me to an event in Tbilisi.
Just like the good old days of sudden business trips: a quick call home, a packed bag and off we go. But this time I was travelling with my wife — it was a formal invitation to celebrate the anniversary of Shalva’s detective agency together. I love the drive from Yerevan to Tbilisi: it passes through Armenia’s most picturesque places — along the shore of blue Lake Sevan, then along winding roads through Dilijan’s forests ablaze with autumn colours, then the Georgian border and Tbilisi.
A city where almost every old corner is full of Armenian spirit. After checking into the hotel, an obligatory stroll through the old quarters of Tiflis. Dinner was planned at the Gorgasali restaurant, housed in a 17th-century building. This was the restaurant where US President George W. Bush dined during his visit to Georgia in 2005. As guests of honour, we were seated at the very table where the American president had eaten.
At the height of the evening a man came up to Shalva, and they left the hall together. Less than two minutes later I got a message from Shalva inviting me to join them. The Georgian who had approached him, Irakli, held a fairly influential position, with a chain of restaurants and other entertainment venues across Georgia. After we were introduced, he began his story, agitated and aggrieved: the windows of his upscale restaurant in central Batumi were being smashed almost every week.
The police could do nothing. Masked attackers would walk up and break the windows with stones. Most importantly, each stone was wrapped in paper bearing Russian obscenities aimed at him and his family. The most telling fact was that whenever they put the area under covert surveillance, nothing happened. We asked him to give us the details the next morning at Shalva’s office and went back to the celebration — to strengthen Armenian–Georgian brotherhood with “duels” of the best toasts and jokes.
The next morning I saw my wife off to Yerevan and went to Shalva’s office. Irakli came. According to him, he had no problems with anyone, no enemies, and everything in his business was fine. His daughter was married and lived in Georgia, and his son Dato was a full-time student at a well-known Moscow university. Having given us the details, Irakli left. I was convinced this was no ordinary intimidation.
Shalva and I began planning. We agreed that Shalva would handle Georgia — examining employees and possible competitors — while I would look for possible adversaries outside Georgia. I started with Dato’s lifestyle as the first connecting link. We carried out an in-depth analysis of his social media — old photos, tags from university events. At first glance: the classic life of a successful son of wealthy Caucasian parents — an expensive sports car, a rented flat in central Moscow, friends living the high life.
But six or seven months earlier his posts had changed dramatically. Before that, plenty of activity; afterwards, near silence. A strange pause. A person can delete a post, but not the chronology between posts. In old tags, on third parties’ pages and in group photos, one name kept appearing — and then abruptly vanished. Dato seemed to have tried to cover his tracks.
Shalva was analysing Irakli’s business empire, which spanned all of Georgia. He found no internal conflicts, no disgruntled employees, no financial problems. Yet the windows were smashed on days when Irakli was not in Batumi. Someone knew exactly where he was. And that information was not widely available. This was no longer a coincidence. I compared the changes in Dato’s life with the incidents in Batumi. The first smashed window came after his first edits on social media, the second after a short visit to Georgia, the third after his return to Moscow. It suggested that the attacks were most likely not simple vandalism but retaliation for something he had done.
I decided to fly to Moscow. From Vnukovo Airport I went to the PRINCE PARK hotel, where the owner, my good brother Karen, had booked the presidential suite for me. On the way I looked out at Moscow’s night lights and thought about one simple thing: when a person starts “cleaning up” the pages of their life to hide something from someone, it is usually not just out of shame. It is out of fear. And fear opens the way to the most dangerous scenarios. Karen welcomed me at the hotel not as its owner but as a brother who had missed me.
In the morning I went to the university, where my brother and colleague Hovhannes Babajanyan, one of Russia’s best investigators, was waiting for me. The university’s vice-rector for security was a close friend of his. We needed to dig very deep. But before going to the university, I had already asked Shalva to find something out: who was responsible for the restaurant’s security system? Who had information about Irakli’s movements?
Hovhannes is a master of turning up in the right place at the right time. He has his own methods: no noise, no wasted moves, two pieces of information from a single step. I knew that if he said “the vice-rector is one of ours”, we would not be outsiders inside the university. The vice-rector received us in his office. Neatly dressed, with crisp military bearing — a former general of the security services. Under any political system, former security officers make valuable heads of security for any organisation after they retire. Hovhannes had already introduced us, and we started talking like old friends.
We started with Dato. His “life” at the university was not just about classes. Life there was made up of different groups and events, open and closed. In the open groups people discuss student life and studies. In the closed ones, it is decided who will talk to whom, who will walk past whom, and who will not even accidentally mix with whom. The general had a large database with information on everyone: entry and exit logs, library visits, gym registrations, personal and romantic relationships and so on. If the head of security is a professional, every detail is recorded.
I decided to start with the smallest thing. Dato’s file had a big “gap” — a period of several weeks when his usual routine had been sharply disrupted. And that period coincided with the changes on his social media. Hovhannes casually asked the vice-rector: “Does Dato have a girlfriend?” It was the right question. The general opened the file and gave an ordinary Russian name. But I don’t believe in the word “ordinary” when it comes to one of Moscow’s elite universities.
There, every second “ordinary” student has an extraordinary patron, and every third has an extraordinary life. The girl was not Russian. Half Georgian, half with Chechen roots. She studied at the same university. The romance had started quickly and become serious even faster. And then ended just as quickly. Dato had simply walked away. No explanation, no responsibility.
We took the girl’s details and left. Hovhannes and I walked across the university courtyard, the cold autumn Moscow air hitting our faces. There had been a story around Dato that he had tried to erase and forget. But the story had not forgotten him. It had turned into a demand for retribution. And demands that come from a world where connections are stronger than the law don’t usually end with “please”. Hovhannes stepped away for a moment and, coming back, said: “Brother, the girl’s family… it’s not an ordinary family. There are names here people don’t even joke about. They warn you first. And the windows are exactly that — a warning.”
The problem was now clearly taking shape. The girl came from no ordinary family: her father was an influential businessman with a strong position in Russia’s logistics sector. He had good connections in Russian official circles and with a number of underworld figures in Moscow and southern Russia. He was one of those people in whose circle honour is not discussed — it is defended. Dato had broken off the relationship abruptly, and the girl had taken it hard.
In the evening Hovhannes and I returned to the hotel. Karen and the brothers were waiting in the restaurant. All night, under the hospitable roof of the Prince, Armenian music and Armenian spirit filled the air.
In the morning Shalva called. It turned out that the key information passed through the hands of a new security employee who had moved from Russia to Georgia six months earlier. A flawless CV, previous experience as head of security at international organisations. We began looking into him and found that before coming to Georgia he had worked for a large Russian holding company. The owner of that holding was the girl’s father.
At that moment the whole chain closed. Information about Irakli’s movements was not leaking by accident. It was being passed on systematically. The new security officer, responsible for internal security within the organisation, had in fact become the source of the leak himself. He knew when Irakli was in town and when he wasn’t. And it was on exactly those days that the “unknown masked men” appeared. The girl’s father’s security team had effectively managed to plant their man in Irakli’s team.
Everything was clear; now further developments had to be prevented. Through one of the Georgian underworld authorities, Shalva arranged a meeting. This intermediary had good connections in Russian high society as well as in criminal circles. Shalva and Irakli flew to Moscow. We organised a private meeting at an exclusive closed club outside Moscow. At meetings like that, people speak not with documents but with authority and responsibility. The atmosphere was heavy. We parted without any agreement. But from that day on, the windows of the Batumi restaurant remained intact.
At the airport our paths parted: I was flying to Armenia, Irakli and Shalva to Georgia. During the flight I thought about one simple truth. In business, everything can be negotiated. But when it becomes a matter of honour, the negotiations happen in silence. And if you don’t hear that silence in time, the next thing broken may not be a window, but a life.
Hayk GABRIELYAN
Aravot daily
06.03.2026
Read at the source (in Armenian): “Stones as a warning”