The offender received assistance in centres for allegedly further transfer to the military serving in the combat zone in the south of the country.
To gain the trust of real volunteers, he used a fake combatant’s certificate.
Operatives of the Strategic Investigations Department in Lviv region jointly with investigators of the Police Department No. 3 of the Lviv District Police Department No. 2 exposed a scheme for the illegal appropriation of humanitarian goods imported by volunteer centres and NGOs from abroad.
To implement the criminal plan, the 29-year-old resident of Lviv region used a forged combatant certificate. This allowed him to quickly gain trust among representatives of various volunteer organisations, who, in turn, provided free assistance for the needs of military units.
The offender personally forged the SBU ID using false information, as he was wanted by law enforcement agencies for committing a number of property crimes.
Posing as a volunteer who was allegedly helping to equip certain units of the Armed Forces, the offender received humanitarian aid – medicines, essentials and military ammunition – from the warehouses of volunteer centres in Lviv region. The offender was obliged to deliver it to certain military units and brigades serving in the combat zone in the south of the country.
However, the pseudo-volunteer never delivered any humanitarian aid to the units specified in his commitments. The fraudster misappropriated the products received at the humanitarian hubs and subsequently sold them for cash.
In February 2024, the police detained the suspect at the premises of a public organisation in Lviv while receiving another batch of free humanitarian aid – turnstiles, haemostatic agents and occlusive stickers. At the time, the value of the aid was almost UAH 100,000.
In total, the offender was documented to have received free aid worth over UAH 230,000.
Under the procedural supervision of the Pustomyty District Prosecutor’s Office, the indictment was forwarded to court. The court found the defendant guilty of committing criminal offences under Part 2 of Art. 190 (Fraud), Part 1 and 4 of Art. 358 (Forgery of documents, seals, stamps and forms, sale or use of forged documents, seals, stamps) of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
The court sentenced the pseudo-volunteer to 2.5 years of imprisonment.
The Strategic Investigations Department of the
National Police of Ukraine