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wiki2.pngRouben Sevacherian (born August 18th, 1985) is a 34 year old criminal figure of Armenian heritage. Although born in Yerevan, Armenia; Rouben spent a majority of his life in the neighborhood of Morningwood, Los Santos. The community, widely referred to as Los Santos' Little Armenia, is home to a modern age organized criminal enterprise known as Armenian Power or West Side Armenian Power Gang (W/S AP Gang). Rouben, known by associates as the moniker "Camel", has openly displayed ties to the gang since his teenage years, but has more recently graduated into firearms distribution and white collar crimes including credit card fraud and fake investment schemes. This change in modus operandi is suspected to be in part due to his connection with alleged members of the criminal society vory v zakone. Rouben currently serves as a chieftain in the Armenian Power off-branch dubbed by law enforcement as the Yuzbashyan-Sevacherian Organization.

 

Rouben was born in the summer of 1985 to working class parents in Yerevan, Armenia. His mother, Mila Boldyreva, hailed from a Russian-background family whose history in Armenia started when the Soviets seized control of the nation in the ‘20s. She worked as a seamstress for a local market while his father, Isahak Sevacherian, worked closely with Ameriabank as an investment banker. As a child, Rouben only spent a few short years in Yerevan before his father relocated the family to Lebanon. This move occurred just after 1991, when the Red curtain fell and ex-Soviet satellite countries were once again made more accessible to immigration. At this time, Isahak accepted a more profitable position within Lebanon’s national bank, Banque du Liban, which allowed his wife to remove herself from the workforce to raise their family from home and home school Rouben. Mila became pregnant with the family’s second child when Rouben was at the age of 10. It was at this time the family immigrated to Los Santos, San Andreas to the community of Morningwood.
 
Life as a foreign-born youth, fresh in the soil of America, was undoubtedly difficult for young Rouben. He was placed into the public school system where his parents both hoped he would gain a new cultural identity as an American and fit in better with his peers in their new home. However in the turbulent racial atmosphere of 1990s Los Santos, Rouben was exposed to more than just a new language and more Westernized culture. The school systems within West Vinewood were breeding grounds for various troubled youth navigating their way through the gangland of Los Santos. Blacks, Hispanics, and even whites cliqued together in the hallways, cafeterias, and playgrounds - each with the same goal of looking out for their own people. 
 
However, there was a new group cultivating in the turmoil which was born and bred in the immigrant community of Morningwood. At the time, it was merely a group of Armenian and soviet-bloc youth reaching out to protect one another from the abuse of other teens. Rouben was swept up into this clique by some older teens who saw familiar traits in him that they’d seen in themselves. They remembered the struggle of fitting in with a new culture and bared the scars to tell the tale. What seemed somewhat selfless and positive at the time was indeed the roots of Armenian Power within Los Santos. The group escalated from this into typical gang behavior throughout the late ‘90s and into the 2000s. They claimed terrirtory with vandalism and graffiti, harassed other races, committed robberies, dipped into the drug trade like one would associate with a group of this nature. For Rouben, now nearing adulthood, the gang gave him an identity - something her very much struggled to obtain when he first moved to America. He saw the gang lifestyle and who he was as an individual as one in the same, which ultimately led to a dissociation from his immigrant parents. They shunned Rouben for his choices and with the passing of his kid brother (Manuel Sevacherian) to leukemia in 2006; Rouben lost touch with those who raised him.

 

At twenty one, Rouben left his parents domicile and sought out refuge with his fellow gang members, spending a number of years couch surfing throughout Morningwood and North Vinewood. This was a considerably dark chapter of his life, given his younger brother’s death and the exile from his family that he faced. With little to show for himself, no formal education, no livable jobs, no place of his own, he sought refuge in the streets.

 

Screenshot_20200308-144917_2.pngAlongside senior AP member Davit “Caterpillar” Avetisyan, Rouben would participate in armed robbery and fencing stolen car parts as means to feed himself and afford certain luxuries. Davit introduced Rouben to circles of criminals such as vory v zakone which provided the pair with criminal opportunity above the typical gang MO. One individual in particular, a supposed "crowned" thief-in-law known by the moniker "Benzin" took a piece of their earnings in exchange for access to overseas buyers of stolen car parts. This allowed Rouben the means to construct a solid reputation among other like minded criminals under the flag of Armenian Power, eventually landing himself some status among the gang's senior members as a "gor." However, the risky behavior and gang activity was bound to teach Rouben a hard lesson about consequences. He and Davit were caught in 2010 evading police after committing a vehicle theft, landing Rouben with a sentence of nine months plus an additi pional year for the value of the vehicle exceeding $65,000 while Davit received a sentence of two years due to prior convictions. There was no plea bargains at stake; their unwillingness to cooperate along with the not guilty plea being dismantled in court sent the pair on a scholarship to con college, served by Twin Towers county jail.

 
Inside the county lock up, Rouben and Davit would brush elbows with various cliques from the gangland of Los Santos. The southerners, or surenos, held the most influence of all. They ran the yard with an iron fist, backed by the black hand of La eMe under a Rene "Bosko" Blajos. Davit was easily influenced by the likes of Blajos who provided a pipeline of drugs through his network beyond prison walls and the promise of protection, while Rouben understood the lure of false promise could likely land him in a cycle of additional prison time. He used his sentence as a lesson, speaking with various lifers about the crimes they regret and choices they wish they had made. He began to idolize those who spent a lifetime committing crimes in the backs of others, taking advantage of holes in the system to keep themselves fed and safe. 
 
At the end of their sentence, Davit and Rouben had split into separate cells of the overall umbrella organization. Davit took the plunge into the pool of eMe influence, bringing about the presence of "AP-13" who paid street tax to the Blajos' Street Crew and ultimately embraced the sureno lifestyle. Rouben on the other hand left Twin Towers with a hunger for status - status which he believed was held in the hands of he and Davit's former co-conspirator Vrej "Benzin" Yuzbashyan. His "stem" of the Armenian Power organization would become known as West Side (W/S) Armenian Power - a group which maintained connections to the Russian mafia and Eurasian organized crime.

 

Upon his return to Morningwood, Rouben reconnected with AP which had noticed a shift in membership in his absence. Half of his former affiliates decided to follow Davit into the sureno side of the organization while others either split into their own earner crews or represented the gang's original roots. Rouben sought out Vrej Yuzbashyan and was introduced to other figures within the sphere of Eurasian organized crime. In exchange for access to firearms and protection, it was agreed that under Vrej's watchful eye, Rouben would seize control of the splintered gang and act as a chieftain - linking the organized criminals and their services to the gang and the muscle which they could provide. At first tension was apparent between the two groups. Although Rouben and Davit remained on friendly terms due to their relationship and bond fostered through their youth, members would often engage in petty disputes due to their differences. Ultimately, the sureno representation overall would cease to exist as of 2018. These days, the gang roots are somewhat diluted due to a more prominent presence of organized crime within the Armenian community. Tattoos are still used to signify status within the community in L.S. though they no longer hold the same style of representation as they did in the past. Instances exist of individuals who earn their ink through criminal contribution, but others who simply wear the term "Armenian Power" as a term of ethnic pride and endearment. 
 
Through Vrej, Rouben fostered his own criminal venture; a credit card fraud ring. At first he started small with devices known to authorities as "Lebanese Loops." These little sleeves would slip into the card slots of ATMs and withhold a victim's credit card once inserted, refusing to eject it from the machine. Through this scheme Rouben would make several thousand dollars, skimming what he could before ultimately selling the credentials to criminals of higher stature. Eventually this scheme would become more sophisticated, allowing Rouben to purchase advanced card skimming units with potential to gather more information than a simple Lebanese Loop. 
 
The gang was able to keep itself off the radar of law enforcement throughout its rebuild, due in part to the attention received by the neighboring AP-13 clique and the downfall of "Bosko" Blajos' eMe empire. With the limelight focused elsewhere, W/S AP began establishing new key players such as Arman Vartanian, Arshen Markosyan, Gevork Karayan, brothers Vardan and Levon Gasparyan, and others who Rouben would absorb under his influence. The group dabbled in areas of crime such as extortion, drug trafficking, marijuana grow ops, prostitution, and fraud. The cooperative ad hoc group with Rouben and Vrej at the helm was dubbed as the Yuzbashyan-Sevacherian Organization, suggesting an existence of multiple groups involved on various levels. 

Edited by Chef
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