You're reading: Source: Employees of Polish consulate in Lutsk dismissed following ‘visa scandal’

The Foreign Ministry of Poland has fired all employees of its consulate in Lutsk and the consul general was dismissed following a visa scandal, reads a posting of the Ukrainian service of the Polskie Radio.

“It [the dismissal] is connected with the violations that occurred in the process of visa issuing that were discovered in the consulate. The consul general was dismissed, as were five other consuls that were involved in the process,” Director General of the Foreign Service of the Polish Foreign Ministry Miroslaw Gajewski said, according to the radio.

He also said that the consuls deliberately issued visas to “certain groups of clients.” An investigation discovered that a company that received documents for visas created an artificial queue.

The prosecutor’s office of Katowice (Poland) is investigating into the case.

Spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of Poland Marcin Bosacki, in turn, said that the situation in Lutsk will not influence the temp of issuing visas to Ukrainian citizens. He also apologized for “shameful behaviour of several consuls.”

Earlier, Polish media reported that a criminal group in the Consulate General of Poland in Lutsk issued Schengen visas to people that had no right to receive them, and was allegedly involved in human trafficking.