In Ukraine, the leadership of a Zaporizhzhia university will stand trial for a scheme involving over 50 million UAH and 3,000 "postgraduate students" to evade mobilization, Prosecutor General Ruslan Kravchenko announced on social media on Monday, UNN reports.
An indictment has been sent to court against 9 members of a criminal organization who organized a large-scale scheme for the fictitious enrollment of persons liable for military service into postgraduate studies to obtain a deferment from mobilization,
Details
According to the Prosecutor General, "the organizer of the scam was the rector and owner of a private university in Zaporizhzhia." "He involved his daughter—the vice-rector for scientific-pedagogical and scientific work—three other vice-rectors, the deputy director of one of the institutes, the head of the information systems center, and employees of the postgraduate department in the scheme," he indicated.
Fictitious studies were reportedly arranged through the forgery of documents, the entry of false data, and illegal interference in the state EDEBO database. Admission documents were backdated, and the "postgraduate students" themselves did not actually study.
"Over two years, nearly 3.5 thousand men of conscription age were illegally processed through the scheme. About 3,000 of them obtained grounds for a deferment from mobilization," Kravchenko noted.
At the same time, the licensed enrollment capacity for postgraduate studies, according to him, was exceeded by 13 times: the institution had the right to admit no more than 265 postgraduate students.
"The cost of 'services' consisted of the official tuition fee, nearly 20 thousand hryvnias for two semesters, and a separate illegal benefit: from several hundred to over 260 thousand hryvnias per person. In total, the scheme brought its organizers over 50 million hryvnias," the Prosecutor General stated.
The scam, according to Kravchenko, was uncovered after the EDEBO administrator recorded suspicious mass registration of applicants and contacted law enforcement. Following this, the Ministry of Education and Science revoked the university's license for training postgraduate students.
"All defendants are charged with participation in a criminal organization, bribery, document fraud, interference with IT systems, and obstructing the lawful activities of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. The organizer of the scheme is additionally charged with creating a criminal organization and laundering illegally obtained funds," the Prosecutor General reported.
"Education cannot be a cover for trading deferments. And a diploma or postgraduate status cannot be a tool for evading duty to the state. We continue our work," Kravchenko emphasized.