Border Guards Stop Truck Smuggling 10 Men to Moldova Among Milk Pallets

Officers of the Mohyliv-Podilskyi border detachment shut down a channel for illegally moving people across the state border, the State Border Guard Service reported.

A sealed semi-trailer under customs control was meant to lend the shipment an air of respectability and help the men reach Moldova unnoticed. The men, residents of the Dnipropetrovsk, Vinnytsia, Kharkiv, Kyiv and Lviv regions, were to pay from $3,000 to $15,000 each. But the plan failed: law enforcers stopped the truck on its way to the border near the village of Maiaky. The would-be travelers were held administratively liable.

The driver

According to the service, the logistics were handled by a 40-year-old Moldovan citizen, who drove a DAF truck toward the Starokozache checkpoint, hiding ten passengers among pallets of milk. During authorized searches, officers seized the driver's phone, radios he used to keep in touch with clients, a notebook with draft records, and money in various currencies. The foreigner has been served a notice of suspicion under Article 332, “Illegal transfer of persons across the state border.”