Law enforcers have stopped the activities of a criminal group whose participants forged documents for illegal border crossings by citizens. Six suspects, including the head of a department at Mykolaiv City Council, have been detained.
According to the press service of the Mykolaiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office, the detainees are the head of the department for organization of defense and mobilization work and interaction with law enforcement bodies at Mykolaiv City Council, a former employee of the migration service, a Moldovan citizen, a resident of Kyiv region, and two residents of Mykolaiv region.
The investigation established that from May 2017 to March 2018, the head of this department, who has dual citizenship (Ukrainian and Russian), and his son, who is a citizen of Russia and a serviceman of the Russian Armed Forces, acting on prior collusion with five other persons, residents of Kyiv and Mykolaiv regions, one of whom is also a Russian citizen, established a mechanism for manufacturing forged passports of Ukrainian citizens registered in the temporarily unoccupied territories of Luhansk and Donetsk regions currently beyond Ukraine’s control, as well as the annexed territory of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, and included false information about their owners for unhindered crossing of the state border.
The culprits formed a package of counterfeit documents for customers that were needed to obtain passports (certificates of criminal records, medical certificates, identification codes, marriage certificates, etc.).
It was established that these persons had been engaged in criminal activities for about ten years and that about 30 episodes of criminal activity had been documented.
The detainees were informed of suspicion in committing crimes under Part 3, Article 332, Part 3, Article 358 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (illegal transfer of persons across the state border, forgery of documents, seals, stamps and forms, sale or use of forged documents, seals, and stamps). The issue of choosing preventive measures in the form of detention is being decided.
