An Odessa resident paid 200,000 to the police and avoided jail time for forging documents

The court sentenced a man from Odesa to five years in prison, suspended, for selling counterfeit Romanian documents with an accomplice to evade mobilization. The man fully admitted his guilt, agreed to identify his accomplice, and voluntarily donated 200,000 hryvnias to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

This is stated in the verdict of the Berezan District Court of Mykolaiv Oblast.

According to the case file, the convicted man and his accomplice offered to produce fake Romanian passports and driver’s licenses for men subject to military service in exchange for 6,000 euros. The forged documents allowed for unimpeded passage through checkpoints and across the border. 

The convicted man claimed that the passports and driver’s licenses would be produced in Moldova. According to him, the documents were to bear all the hallmarks of originals. According to the case file, he also promised, for a separate fee, to help obtain entry and exit stamps for Ukraine once every three months.

One of the men who received the offer contacted law enforcement. He subsequently acted under the supervision of security agencies. 

On April 23, in Odesa, near a fast-food restaurant, the convicted man received the first installment of payment—3,000 U.S. dollars, which amounted to 131,700 hryvnias at the National Bank of Ukraine’s exchange rate. That same day, he received photographs for the documents and forwarded them to an accomplice in Moldova. 

On May 5, the finished forged documents were delivered to Ukraine by a shared taxi. That same day, at a parking lot near the market in Koblevo, the men handed over a Romanian passport, a Ukrainian passport, and a driver’s license to the client. In return, they received the remaining amount, $4,000 (approximately 176,000 hryvnias). Immediately afterward, both men were detained by officers of the Security Service of Ukraine in the Mykolaiv region.

An examination determined that the documents did not match the characteristics of genuine ones issued by the authorized authorities of Romania.

The court recognized sincere remorse and cooperation in solving the crime, as well as the voluntary transfer of funds to support the army, as mitigating circumstances.
 

Юлія Калабайда