Photo: State Border Guard Service of Ukraine
Cigarettes were smuggled across the border under cover of diplomats’ family members.
Ukraine’s former head of the State Border Guard Service and a current SBGS official have been served with suspicion notices over systematic bribery. They are accused of regularly receiving illegal payments in exchange for facilitating unhindered crossings of Ukraine’s state border. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau (NABU) and the Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office (SAPO) did not name the suspects, but the main фигурант in the case is recently dismissed former SBGS chief Serhii Deyneko.
According to NABU, the suspects include:
a general, former head of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine;
the head of a department at a Border Guard Service checkpoint;
a former official of the Border Guard Service.
The actions of all suspects were classified under Part 4 of Article 27 and Part 4 of Article 368 of Ukraine’s Criminal Code.
Investigators established that in 2023 a group of individuals, with the assistance of officials from the State Border Guard Service, organized the illegal transportation of cigarettes across Ukraine’s border into the European Union. To do this, they used vehicles registered in the Czech Republic and Austria, fitting them with special license plates resembling diplomatic ones.
“Passengers in such vehicles were holders of diplomatic passports — family members of Ukrainian diplomats in Europe. This made it possible to avoid inspections by border and customs authorities of EU countries,”
SAPO said.
In return, senior officials of the State Border Guard Service ensured unhindered crossings to and from Ukraine.
The Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office documented that between July and November 2023, border guards received about €204,000 in illegal benefits for the passage of 68 vehicles (€3,000 per vehicle).
“The investigation found that the Border Guard Service officials had previously served together with the diplomats whose relatives later became participants in this scheme,”
the prosecutor’s office said.
Earlier on Wednesday, it became known that searches had been carried out at the home of former SBGS head Serhii Deyneko, who was dismissed from his post in early January. Searches were also conducted at properties linked to Deyneko in the Zakarpattia region and at the office of acting SBGS head Valerii Vavryniuk.
