MYSTERY WOMAN FOUND

Today I investigated a lead from witnesses that saw the woman in John Hughes's Armenia Now story about Hayk being reunited with his family after being in an orphanage for 3 years.

From my album of anyone and everyone that could be involved with adoptions and child trafficking, the picture of a woman named Siranush was positively identified by the witnesses.

Edik Baghsdasaryan gave Siranush a call at the Europa Hotel, where it seems Siranush works. He was straightforward with her and told her who he was and why he was calling. Siranush denied everything and told him to never call her again. She was clearly upset.

I called Siranush this morning posing as an Armenian-American from Boston named Eric Bedrossian and was in need of translation work. She agreed to meet with me and due to my work today, I had to reschedule our meeting a couple of time, finally making my way down to the hotel where my surveillance team had already arrived to document the meeting and intervene if I had any problems.

As you can see in the pictures, Siranush is a very pleasant person. She speaks English quite well.

The first few minutes was small talk and then I told her that I think my mother Sylva Natalie Manoogian knows her from a library event (just a guess on my part since my mom seems to know anyone I don't know) and she admitted to meeting my mother here on her last trip and was very pleased to meet me.

I then gave her my real name and asked if she had heard of me and my work in investigating the child adoption problems in Armenia? She admitted to knowing of me and reading Emil’s story.

I then told her that I didn’t believe that she was a big fish in the larger picture (though in fact she is one of the biggest local fish that has been doing this kind of work the longest) and that if she would work with me and provide me with information about who she was working with, I would do my best to keep her name out of things.

As I expected, she acted puzzled and told me that she was just a translator and that she did not facilitate adoptions.

I showed her the February 1999 issue of AIM and the story about adoption in Armenia where it was reported: "...she [Anahid, a French-Armenian woman] was also contacted by a woman named Siranush who proposed to find a baby and take care of all the paperwork in one month only--for a fee of $8000. Siranush explained that she did not receive any portion of that sum, and if Anahid wished, she could pay her something for her "humanitarian" serices. Siranush's contacts included the former director of the Nork Orphanage, Yelena Gasparian."

I then went on to ask her about her visit to Laura’s house on August 17th, 2003 at midnight? She didn’t deny anything and said that she will not comment, but the look on her face told me that it was her.

I told her that I know that she had been helping a man named Nicholas McCoy and a woman named Virginia Mason from an organization called Family Support America, one of the largest family support organizations in America and had visited and seen Hayk two and a half years ago and at that time the child was quite healthy and active (practically jumping out of the arms of his nurse) based on a photograph I had that was taken at the time. She admitted that she had been with McCoy when he visited all the the orphanages in Armenia, but was just a translator.

She also admitted to meeting Gagik and Hasmik, the facilitators from the June 25th story, in connection with her work with Family Support America at someone’s apartment.

I again asked her if she would like to help me with information for my investigation and she said she would be willing to help as a translator, but she felt she had no information that I would find useful.

I told her that if she had a change of heart, to do it soon, as my findings I have to turn over to the appropriate legal bodies, as if nothing more, her visit on August 17th to give false information about the health of Hayk so he could be adopted as a sick child and could be viewed as child trafficking. I really don't think she will be contacting me.