Georgia arrests ex-security chief for allegedly aiding global scam call centers

Georgian prosecutors have arrested the former Head of the State Security Service Grigol Liluashvili for allegedly taking bribes in return for protecting scam call centers that targeted people around the world.

Liluashvili, who led the country’s security division from 2019 until around April 2025, is charged with “taking a bribe in a particularly large amount by a group by prior agreement”, which carries a sentence of 11 to 15 years.

Apart from taking bribes from several individuals, prosecutors say that Liluashvili received approximately $1,365,000 in bribes for protecting “a relatively small part of the call centers”, through the mediation of Sandro Liluashvili, his cousin who was arrested on charges of fraud and money laundering.

Between 2021-2023, as the country battled illegal call centers, several dozen of them still remained in Georgia. Citing witness testimonies, prosecutors say that most of these call centers belonged to a group of individuals who used the funds to finance various opposition media outlets.

They are also actively investigating whether Liluashvili and accomplices helped to hide the existence of those scam call centers – and whether opposition media outlets allegedly did not report on them under Liluashvili's protection, despite the fact that they, according to prosecutors, had this information.

The officials are continuing to investigate other potential crimes committed by Liluashvili, as well as identifying and detaining his accomplices.

“Georgian law enforcement officers continue to fight corruption with the aim of reducing it to a historical minimum and preventing it as much as possible,” says a statement on the Georgian Prosecutor’s Office website (machine translation).

Earlier this year, an investigation titled Scam Empire revealed the scale of the scam call centers problem in Tbilisi. It discovered a massive call center in the Georgian capital that employed about 85 people and generated $35.3 million from more than 6,100 victims worldwide since May 2022. The center was located mere meters away from the State Security Service headquarters.

The assets belonging to the call center were frozen, and recently, a German national who worked at the center was arrested based on an extradition request from Germany. However, in this particular case, it’s not clear which call centers Liluashvili was accused of protecting.

According to multiple Georgian media outlets, this isn’t the first time Liluashvili is linked to protecting scam call centers. In 2022, he was also accused of the same, although he successfully challenged the claims and even filed defamation lawsuits against opposition-aligned TV channels, such as TV Formula and Mtavari.