Former Russian customs officer found dead in toilet after fleeing trial in St. Petersburg

A former Russian customs official was found dead in a toilet in the Armenian Consulate in St. Petersburg on Wednesday, after fleeing a court hearing the previous day, Telegram news channel Baza has reported.

Boris Avakyan, who held dual Armenian and Russian citizenship, appeared to have slit his wrists after locking himself in a consulate toilet. He had reportedly gone there to request extradition to Armenia, having left the courtroom where he was on trial under the pretext of taking a cigarette break.

According to state-affiliated daily Kommersant, Avakyan was on trial for failing to pay Russian customs duties on the import of electronics and clothing from Finland totalling over 4.2 million rubles (€42,600), in a case dating from 2016.

Avakyan was placed under house arrest in 2016, but fled to Armenia to evade the charges. Two years later, he submitted an application to renounce his Russian citizenship, though it is not known whether his request was granted.

According to Kommersant, Avakyan became an associate of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan after his arrival in Armenia, and served as deputy emergency services chief of the unrecognised republic of Nagorno-Karabakh until April 2021.

Avakyan returned to Russia at some point in 2021 after reportedly facing money laundering charges in Armenia, and was detained in St. Petersburg the same year. His trial was briefly halted this summer after he volunteered to sign a contract with the Russian Defence Ministry to serve in Ukraine. However, he was detained again in September after terminating his contract.

According to public records, Avakyan previously headed the customs brokerage of the Port of St. Petersburg, and served as deputy director of the Federal Agency for State Property Management’s directorate for the Leningrad region between 2010 and 2014. In 2014, he was appointed deputy chief inspector for Rosreestr, Russia’s federal cadastre and cartography agency, in St. Petersburg, where he served until his first arrest in 2016.