Cashier on wheels: how Ukrzaliznytsia employees earned millions on passengers

Law enforcement officers have exposed a criminal scheme for reselling train tickets organized by Ukrzaliznytsia employees. Following an investigation by the Center for Public Investigations, which described fraudulent ticketing mechanisms, the National Police served ten members of the organization with a notice of suspicion.

This is stated in the material of the CPR.

According to the investigation, the organizer of the criminal group was the head of a trade union organization. He created a team of officials from the Kyiv-Pasakhyrskyi station and introduced a "cashier" system, according to which they collected from 2 thousand hryvnias for domestic transportation and up to 5 thousand euros for international routes from each flight.

In total, in the first six months of 2024, Ukrzaliznytsia lost more than UAH 70 million.

The fraudsters implemented several schemes.

"For these schemes to work, the head of the union personally approved candidates for the positions of train managers and conductors, explained the rules of the game, and made decisions on the extension of employment contracts. If the candidates were approved, they had to join the union and pay dues every month. This amounted to more than 350,000 hryvnias from all its members. If a person did not agree to these conditions, they were persuaded, not appointed to the position, or transferred to another one," the police said.

The first scheme: conductors sold passengers seats in service compartments that are not sold in the free ticketing system for 300-500 euros without proper receipts. Depending on the type of train, there were 4-6 such seats in the carriage.

The second is the purchase of tickets before the flight with subsequent resale at 2-3 times the price. In these tickets, the passengers' data did not match the data on the travel document and in the ticketing system. They also did not receive receipts, as required by Ukrzaliznytsia's transportation rules.

The funds received were not reflected in the financial statements after the flights were completed, but were distributed among all participants. In the first six months of 2024, Ukrzaliznytsia lost more than UAH 70 million, according to law enforcement.

In addition to the fact that these funds ended up in the pockets of UZ employees, their actions led to an artificial shortage of travel tickets in the free sale system.

This is exactly what CPR wrote about in the article "Buying a Train Ticket: Quest and Fraudhttps://cpi.org.ua/analytics/kupiti-kvitok-na-poyizd-kvest-ta-shahrajstvo/". It should be noted that it was the conductor who told us about the scheme off the record, but we were unable to reach him at the number provided.

Investigators have now notified ten members of the organization of suspicion. Depending on their roles and participation in the schemes, the suspects are charged with Part 1, 2 and 3 of Article 255 (creation, leadership of a criminal community or criminal organization, as well as participation in it) and Part 1 and 2 of Article 364 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (abuse of power or official position). During the searches, law enforcement officers seized almost UAH 5 million, cars, draft records, documentation, phones, etc.

Ірина Глухова