Fake news featuring Anna Hakobyan: Coordinated work of the newly created EUleaks.eu website and social media

A few days ago a news story published on August 13 was circulated in the Armenian information domain with a link to the EUleaks.eu website, according to which the wife of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, Anna Hakobyan, “has been caught up in a corruption scandal by wasting $3.4 million from the funds of the City of Smile Foundation, which supports children suffering from cancer.”

Note that Hakobyan was the chairman of the board of trustees of the Foundation from 2018 to 2020. She was succeeded by Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, who was then head of the Tavush Diocese.

It is noteworthy that the information was not republished by major Armenian media outlets. It was shared in the Armenian-language information domain by a number of Facebook users.

Investigation without evidence and references to statements never made

It is noteworthy that the article did not contain any evidence or facts regarding wasting the funds of the foundation by Anna Hakobyan.

Meanwhile, one of the lawyers of the “Five Human Rights Defenders” initiative, Sergey Harutyunyan, was cited as allegedly stating that Bagrat Galstanyan, who became the chairman of the board of trustees after Hakobyan, “exposed Hakobyan’s corruption scheme.”

“A recent audit showed that from 2018 to 2025, Anna Hakobyan withdrew more than $3.4 million from the foundation funds through intermediary organizations, depriving hundreds of sick children of life-saving medical care,” attorney Harutyunyan said, according to the article.

However, Arsen Babayan, who represents the same initiative, noted in the comments section to a relevant post that Sergey Harutyunyan never made such a statement.

“Lawyer and member of the Five Human Rights Defenders Initiative, Sergey Harutyunyan, never made the statement regarding that foundation mentioned in the article,” Babayan wrote.

Website and author

It is mentioned that the author of this news story published on the EUleaks.eu website is James Creedon.

However, FIP.am has revealed that Creedon is one of the presenters of France 24 international media outlet and has no connection whatsoever with the aforementioned website.

“He’s an Irish journalist and presenter with a background in law and international relations, based in Paris for more than a decade. His special interests are social media, technology and their social and political implications,” his biography reads.  

It is noteworthy that all other publications on the website are presented as authored by other reputable journalists working in major international media outlets, including Gavin Lee from the BBC, Kate Moody, Mark Owen from France 24, etc. However, the latter also have no connection with this source.

FIP.am also revealed that the website was created quite recently, days before the news story about Hakobyan was published. According to the WHOIS platform, which provides analysis of website address (domain) data, the website was created on August 11, 2025.

The domain was registered by TLD Registrar Solutions Ltd, a UK-based company that has been operating since 2011 and provides domain registration services to private companies and individuals.

Pro-Russian users shared the news story in a coordinated manner 

Monitoring by FIP.am showed that the news story was systematically shared by foreign-language accounts on X, Facebook and Instagram. These accounts are mainly engaged in the dissemination of pro-Russian propaganda and posts.

The sharing of the news story featuring Hakobyan on social media in foreign languages indicates that these users acted in a coordinated manner. They created and distributed a video based on the article on EUleaks.eu (1, 2, 3, 4).

 

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Nane Manasyan