Photo: Organizers of a scheme for draft dodgers were detained at the border with Moldova
At a border crossing point with Moldova, law enforcement officers uncovered a scheme to illegally smuggle men of draft age across the border.
Officers from the Chernivtsi Border Guard Detachment, together with the SBU and the police, dismantled a channel for illegally smuggling men into Moldova.
The scheme was organized by several residents of the Khmelnytskyi region, who sought out “clients” through acquaintances and popular messaging apps.
Law enforcement documented three instances of this group’s activities. Recently, during another attempt to smuggle people, the organizers and their passengers were caught red-handed.
Two participants in the scheme were transporting three men—residents of the Dnipropetrovsk, Lviv, and Cherkasy regions—to the border. To maintain secrecy, they set off toward Moldova in two cars, but border guards, with the support of the "Dozor" special unit, stopped the vehicles and detained the entire group.
As the investigation revealed, the traffickers had devised a combined payment scheme: each client paid 12,000 hryvnias at the start of the journey. The men were also supposed to transfer an additional $5,000 to the organizers’ cryptocurrency wallet after successfully crossing the border.
Following the detention, law enforcement officers conducted searches at the suspects’ homes in the Khmelnytskyi region. They seized laptops, mobile phones, bank cards, cash, and four vehicles.
The two detained participants in the scheme have already been charged with illegally smuggling people across the state border.
The court has ordered them to be held in custody as a preventive measure. Law enforcement is currently searching for the main organizer of the illegal operation, according to the State Border Guard Service.
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