Court Sentences Former Border Guard and NGO Head to 7 Years for Smuggling Scheme in Odesa Region

The Bolhrad District Court in Odesa region has found a former border guard and the head of the Danube Roma Organization NGO guilty of illegally transporting a person across the state border.

According to the court's verdict, in 2022, the public figure conspired with a military officer and another unidentified person to smuggle a citizen abroad for 3,500 USD.

Later, the head of the public organization invited the client to his office and explained how the transfer would take place. The transfer itself was to take place on June 30, 2022. It was planned that the client would arrive in Bolhrad, from where the border guard would transport him to Moldova, where he would be met by unidentified persons.

The border guard took the client by car and drove him past the checkpoints using his official position. During the interrogation, the public figure noted that he pleaded guilty to the fact that he wanted to take possession of the citizen's money fraudulently, and they did not intend to smuggle him across the border.

Instead, the border guard stated that he did not show his ID to anyone and did not tell the client about his official position and insisted that his actions were misclassified and they were planning a simple fraud without taking the citizen abroad.

However, despite the procedural position of the defendants, the court decided that their guilt in committing the criminal offense as charged was confirmed by the totality of the investigated factual data contained in the documents and the testimony of the witness, which are procedural sources of evidence and which confirm the actual circumstances of the illegal transportation of persons across the state border of Ukraine.

The men were sentenced to 7 years in prison each. They were immediately taken into custody in the courtroom.

Кирило Бойко