In August 2025, the news went viral that Anna Hakobyan, the wife of the Prime Minister of Armenia, stole money from a fund to help children with cancer. We have verified the accuracy of this story.

Publications that Pashinyan’s wife was allegedly involved in the withdrawal of funds from a charitable foundation spread on August 18. Posts are accompanied by a screenshot of a note from a news site and a video in English. Media and bloggers reported that a corruption scandal had broken out in the City of Smile relief fund, from which $3.4 million in donations had been stolen. This became known during the latest financial audit. Previously, the fund was managed by Anna Hakobyan, after her Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, who was detained in June 2025, was appointed as the new head. Media and bloggers, in posts about the scandal with the prime minister’s wife, referred to lawyer Sergei Harutyunyan, who allegedly said that the real reason for the prosecution of his client was the discovery of a corruption scheme in the fund: from 2018 to 2025, money was withdrawn from there through a network of shell companies associated with Anna Hakobyan. On June 24, Galstanyan shared the audit results with colleagues and planned a public press conference the next day, but was detained.

They wrote about the corruption scandal related to the family of the Prime Minister of Armenia News.ru, Haqqin.az And "Crimea news feed" These messages also appeared in Telegram channels “Russia now • news"(170,000 views at the time of writing this analysis), Zergulio (153,000), "Voice of Mordor"(103,000), "Release the KrakenZ!"(98,000), etc.

Bagrat Galstanyan - archbishop Armenian Apostolic Church, also heading the opposition movement “Holy Struggle”. On June 25, 2025, the Investigative Committee of Armenia released statement, in which he accused the archbishop of planning a power grab. Galstanyan and a number of his supporters were detained.

The City of Smile charity in question was created in 2014. In 2018, the wife of the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan became chairman of the fund's board of trustees. In 2020 Hakobyan reportedthat leaves his post, and in 2021 the Board of Trustees elected Bagrat Galstanyan.

Many authors of viral publications in their notes about the corruption scandal in Armenia refer to a certain agency EU Leaks. This site actually published material about Anna Hakobyan, it came out On August 13, 2025, under the headline “Corruption scandal: Pashinyan’s wife withdrew $3.4 million from a fund to help children with cancer.” The article goes on to say that this money was withdrawn from the fund's accounts between 2018 and 2025, and now the families of the children and opposition leaders are demanding an independent investigation. The text of the note is accompanied by a one and a half minute video in English, which retells its contents.

Viral video

There is no information in the authoritative Armenian media about the demands of opposition representatives or parents of the injured children. At the same time, the main source of information referred to by the authors of the material is Sergei Harutyunyan, Galstanyan’s lawyer. Harutyunyan and the truth represents interests of Archbishop Bagrat, but on August 16 he posted on his Facebook post, where he said that he had never stated anything like this, and that he knew nothing about the withdrawal of funds from the City of Smile fund.

The video itself was compiled from footage previously published on the Internet. For example, the video with Anna Hakobyan’s interview at the 14th second is taken from published six years ago of a video on YouTube, and the excerpt of children signing cards was posted on the foundation channel four years ago. The viral video is accompanied by a voice-over from the presenter and subtitles in English. There is also a version with Russian subtitles, distributed mainly in Russian-language channels. At the same time, the speech from the video sounds unnaturally monotonous, which suggests that AI was used in its creation. Service for identifying generated content DeepFake-o-meter showed a high percentage of probability that the voice was generated using neural networks.

At the same time, the website on which the investigation was published looks suspicious. Firstly, there is no information about him on the Internet, except for notes about the corruption scandal in Armenia. Secondly, the site does not contain information about editorial policy, social networks or authors working in the publication. Thirdly, fact checkers Fact Investigation Platform note, that, according to the Whois service, the site was registered on August 11, that is, just two days before the publication of the investigation.

Photo of the journalist who allegedly wrote a note about Anna Hakobyan, taken from the France 24 website. James Creedon is an Irish presenter who previously worked for a long time with the French television channel. Although Creedon himself did not comment on this publication, France 24 statedthat the identities of Creedon and five other journalists (other notes on the EU Leaks website are also signed with the names Gavin Lee, Mark Owen, Kate Moody, Jessica le Masurier and Yuki Roer) were stolen.

Above - EU Leaks screenshot, below - France 24. Source: collage “Verified”

A fake investigation into the disappearance of funds from the accounts of a charitable foundation spread on August 14, the day after the note appeared on the website. Some publications in social networks X received hundreds of thousands of views. Among Russian-language accounts, the Azerbaijani media was the first to pay attention to the news Haqqin.az, a note appeared in their Telegram channel on August 14 at 18:56 Moscow time. At the same time, the news spread in the Russian-speaking space on August 18. Most likely this is due to publication video with Russian subtitles on the Telegram channel “Voice of Mordor” on August 18 at 15:28 Moscow time.

The creation of such fake news sites or the publication of falsified materials on little-known resources are often used to give credibility to fake news. By this mechanism spread, for example, reports of expensive purchases attributed to Vladimir Zelensky and his relatives. Also recently, in a similar scenario diverged news about the suicide of a surgeon who was allegedly aware of the details of Brigitte Macron’s transgender transition - then the names of real journalists were also used.

Thus, the notes about the theft of $3.4 million from the accounts of the charitable foundation headed by Anna Hakobyan are based on the publication of a fake media outlet. The video accompanying the fake investigation was compiled from previously published footage unrelated to this story and voiced using AI.

Cover photo: annahakobyan.am