You're reading: Former border official charged with letting Poroshenko illegally travel to Maldives

A former head of the military unit of Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service has been charged with helping former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko and his family cross the border without going through passport control, a violation of the law, to fly to the Maldives in winter 2018.

The State Bureau of Investigations announced the charges on July 8. 

Investigators determined that the former official ordered his subordinates to allow Poroshenko and members of his family to illegally go abroad, the Bureau said. If found guilty, the official could be sentenced to 5-7 years in prison and banned from working in some state positions for 3 years. 

The investigators are now looking into other senior managers of the State Security Administration and State Border Guard Service to determine whether they allowed other ex-officials to bypass document checks when crossing the border. 

Reached by the Kyiv Post, the State Border Guard Service declined to comment on these allegations. 

Back in January 2018, Schemes, an investigative journalism project run by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, revealed that then-President Poroshenko secretly flew his family to the Maldives for a vacation. 

According to the journalists, the country’s leader allegedly bypassed passport control, did not register for the flight and used a fake name to check-in at his hotel. 

Cheval Blanc, the hotel where Poroshenko stayed, recorded his name as Mr. Petro Incognito, Schemes uncovered. 

After a public outcry over the secret vacation, Poroshenko’s office confirmed that the president did spend time at the luxurious resort. It denied, however, that Poroshenko had crossed the border illegally. The office also promised to declare all expenses from the trip. According to the journalists, Poroshenko might have spent roughly $500,000. 

The e-declaration for 2017 that Poroshenko filed soon after returning to Kyiv shows only two transactions related to the trip, Hr 1.3 million and Hr 1.4 million (roughly $48,100 and $51,900), which are marked as “tourism services.” The declaration for 2018 shows no expenses related to tourism. 

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