Border Service: Polish consular officials in Lutsk helped sell Ukrainian women into sexual slavery abroad

The State Border Service of Ukraine reported the elimination of a human trafficking channel, which involved employees of the Polish Consulate in Lutsk, as a result of the joint efforts by Ukrainian and foreign law enforcers.

According to the press service of the border service, at the end of 2011, Lutsk frontier unit together with representatives of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and the Interior Ministry in Volyn region received initial information about the criminal scheme involving recruiting and sending Ukrainian women to Germany for sexual exploitation.

The investigation has found out that the Ukrainian women were brought abroad using fraudulent schemes and contacts at the Consulate of Poland in Lutsk, where the Schengen visas were issued, Interfax-Ukraine learned at the agency.

As reported, on August 10 the Foreign Ministry of Poland fired all employees of its consulate in Lutsk and the consul general was dismissed following a visa scandal. An official of the Foreign Service of the Polish Foreign Ministry said that the consuls deliberately issued visas to "certain groups of clients." The Foreign Ministry of Poland said that the situation in Lutsk will not influence the temp of issuing visas to Ukrainian citizens.