A large-scale special operation by law enforcement officers uncovered criminal schemes in the Department of International Cooperation of the State Customs Service, as well as at customs offices in Chernivtsi, Volyn, and Odesa regions. This involves forging OSCE certificates to avoid mobilization, cigarette smuggling, and extortion of bribes. This was reported by Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko, according to UNN.
A large-scale special operation to expose criminal schemes at customs is underway. Within 24 hours, in Kyiv and three other regions, the Prosecutor General's Office, together with the SBU, SBI, National Police, and BEB, stopped criminal schemes at customs.
He said that, in particular, an official of the Department of International Cooperation of the State Customs Service of Ukraine was detained, who organized an illegal scheme for forging OSCE certificates.
By involving a group of individuals from the NGO "International Diplomatic Mission "Organization for Security of the Community of Europe," the customs officer arranged for the issuance of pseudo-OSCE certificates to Ukrainian citizens for a "reward" of $6,800 per piece. These "certificates" allowed them to avoid mobilization. The public organization itself – "International Diplomatic Mission "Organization for Security of the Community of Europe" – was intentionally created as a pseudo-copy of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission in Ukraine. Everything was similar to the real OSCE: the name, website, and hologram.
According to him, the official was detained directly while receiving $6,800 for the production of another certificate in accordance with Article 208 of the Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine.
A notice of suspicion is being prepared under Part 1 of Article 114-1 (Obstruction of the lawful activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and other military formations), Part 3 of Article 369-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (Abuse of influence).
Also, according to Kravchenko, during a series of investigative actions and operational-search measures conducted by law enforcement officers, a number of other criminal schemes were eliminated at customs offices in various regions of Ukraine.
Chernivtsi region
Prosecutors of the Chernivtsi Regional Prosecutor's Office are exercising procedural guidance in criminal proceedings regarding the facts of smuggling excisable goods and their illegal manufacture, storage, sale, or transportation for sale (Part 2 of Article 201-4, Part 1 of Article 204 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine).
According to the investigation, this spring, a large batch of tobacco products, declared as mineral wool, was illegally exported from Ukraine to Romania through the Porubne international automobile checkpoint of the Chernivtsi customs. The truck with the contraband cargo was detained by Romanian border guards. More than 130,000 packs of cigarettes were found and seized in the vehicle. The possible involvement of customs officials in organizing the smuggling channel is being checked, the Prosecutor General added.
Odesa region
During a special operation in Odesa, four officials of the anti-smuggling department of the local customs were exposed extorting illegal benefits from entrepreneurs for unhindered export of goods from Ukraine.
In addition, searches were conducted at the offices of officials of one of the customs posts in Odesa, who received illegal benefits for customs clearance of products without paying customs duties.
Volyn
Officials of the Volyn regional customs are suspected of causing damage to the state budget of almost UAH 2.7 million. They were exposed for groundlessly processing duty-free imports of foreign-made cars.
Under the procedural guidance of prosecutors, the pre-trial investigation into the revealed facts of illegal activities of customs officials continues.
"Systematic work to identify and stop such crimes continues," Kravchenko added.