MOSCOW, Jan 21 In the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported that law enforcement officers uncovered four illegal schemes for transporting men of military age abroad in Mykolaiv, Odessa, Rivne and Khmelnytsky regions.
Earlier, the Verkhovna Rada, on the proposal of Volodymyr Zelensky, extended the period of martial law and general mobilization in Ukraine for 90 days — until February 19, 2023. Departure of men aged 18-60 from Ukraine for the period of martial law is prohibited.
«The security service blocked four channels of illegal travel abroad of Ukrainian citizens of military age. As a result of multi-stage investigative and operational actions in several regions of Ukraine, the organizers of illegal «trafficking» were detained,» the Security Council of Ukraine said in a statement.
The department noted that the average cost of such services ranged from two to six thousand US dollars, depending on the urgency of the departure and the remoteness of the region. So, according to the SBU, a resident of the Shepetovsky district was exposed in the Khmelnitsky region, who offered potential conscripts to leave for the EU under the guise of carriers of medical humanitarian aid. In the Odessa region, detained local residents and a citizen of Moldova entered fictitious notes on their clients' passports about their stay on consular records in a neighboring country. In the Nikolaev region, the organizers of the scheme produced false birth certificates for children. In the Rivne region, another fraudster was detained, who helped local residents illegally travel to the European Union as drivers of international cargo flights.
In the framework of criminal proceedings on the fact of illegal transportation of persons across the state border of Ukraine, investigations are ongoing to establish all the circumstances of the crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Illegal transfer of persons across the state border of Ukraine is considered a crime in the field of protection of the state border of the country, for which a penalty of imprisonment for up to 9 years is provided, if the removal was organized for money.