Indictment against ex-State Migration Service official sent to court
On June 30, 2021, NABU and SAPO referred an indictment against the former First Deputy Head of the State Migration Service of Ukraine to court. The actions of the accused fall under Part 4 of Art. 368 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. The ex-official is charged with committing a criminal offense in 2017 that was recorded after NABU's undercover operation intended to reveal corruption in the migration sphere.
As established by NABU, in June 2017, the suspect offered to provide her with an unlawful benefit in the amount of USD 1,800 for issuing a temporary residence permit in Ukraine to a Vietnamese citizen.
To achieve the criminal goal, the participants in the scheme issued false official documents (DNA tests) that were further used as grounds for knowingly unjust court decisions to establish family ties between foreigners and citizens of Ukraine. This allowed a foreign citizen to acquire the status of a citizen of Ukraine, obtain internal and international passports.
Moreover, in August 2017, the First Deputy Head of the SMSU offered to provide her with an unlawful benefit in the amount of USD 30 thousand for issuing a Ukrainian passport to an Iranian citizen who did not have the right for that.
The investigation has found that the group invented a scheme to grant Ukrainian citizenship to foreigners under artificial conditions. However, after the NABU's special operation was disrupted by PGO and SSU, it was impossible to expose other members of the criminal group. Three detectives were unjustifiably notified of suspicion of committing serious crimes. Subsequently, the criminal proceedings against them were closed in the absence of signs of a crime in their actions.
Further on, the legality and validity of the decision was confirmed by a decision of the Appeals Chamber of the Supreme Anti-Corruption Court, which denied the complaint of ex-official's lawyers against the decision to close the criminal proceedings.
NABU has been investigating the above facts since November 2017. In December 2019, the ex-SMSU official was notified of suspicion. In December 2020, the case materials were made available for her defense.
According to Article 62 of the Constitution of Ukraine, a person is considered not-guilty in the commission of a crime and cannot be subject to criminal punishment until he or she is found guilty by court.