A Tarzana couple and family member who operated a massive COVID-19 relief fraud ring have been captured in Montenegro after fleeing the United States, a law enforcement source confirmed to The Times on Wednesday.
Richard Ayvazyan and his wife, Marietta Terabelian, sliced off their electronic monitoring bracelets and vanished in August after they were convicted in June.
Ayvazyan, 43, was sentenced in absentia to 17 years in prison for leading a fraud ring that stole $18 million in a scam to secure emergency pandemic loans meant for small businesses upended by lockdowns. Terabelian, 37, was sentenced to six years.
Tamara Dadyan, the wife of Ayvazyan’s younger brother, vanished Jan. 28, after U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson gave her 30 days to turn herself in, over the objections of federal prosecutors who said they had no faith she could be trusted to surrender.
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