The SSU Main Directorate for Internal Security jointly with the National Police have shut down a large-scale scheme used by men of military age to illegally leave for other states.

As a result of almost 100 searches throughout Ukraine, the SSU exposed officials who offered potential conscripts to cross the border using counterfeit documents on their ‘medical unfitness’ for military service.

The leadership of Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyi military enlistment office and the local military medical commission, acting in a criminal group, organized the illicit channel.

The price for such ‘services’ ranged from USD 7,000 to 10,000, depending the draft evader’s finances, place of residence and urgency.

To find clients, the officials organized an extensive network of intermediaries operating in Kyiv, Odesa, Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk, Zakarpattia, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zhytomyr, Lviv, and Poltava regions.

After issuing fake documents, the organizers provided the men with a ‘route’ to escape abroad - through ‘Starokozache’ international checkpoint in Odesa oblast.

In the course of the operation, the SSU documented 14 persons who tried to use the ‘service’: having purchased a full package of counterfeit ‘documents’, they were going to leave Ukraine.

During almost 100 searches at the offices and homes of the participants of the scheme, the SSU seized computer equipment and documents with evidence, as well as large amounts of cash in different currencies – proceeds of crime.

Criminal proceedings were opened under the Articles of the CCU:

• 199.2, 28.4, 199.3 (manufacturing, storage, acquisition, transportation, shipment, import into Ukraine for purpose of using in sale of goods, sale of counterfeit money, government securities in paper form, state lottery tickets, excise tax stamps or holographic security elements);
• 209.2 (money laundering);
• 28.3, 358.3 (forgery of documents, seals, stamps and forms, sale or use of forged documents, seals, stamps);
• 332.3 (unlawful transportation of persons across Ukraine’s state border);
• 369-2.3 (abuse of influence);
• 190.3 (fraud);
• 289.3 (illegal seizure of a vehicle).

Court is to decide on measures of restraint for the suspects, who are facing 12 years in prison with confiscation of property.

The investigation is underway.

The operation was carried out under the procedural supervision of the Prosecutor General’s Office.