In Odesa region, 100 men detained for attempting to cross the border

In the Odesa region, 100 men were detained for attempting to illegally cross the border. They were supposed to cross the border on foot, paying between $5,000 and $18,500 for the service.

This was reported by the press service of the State Bureau of Investigations of Ukraine.

The business was organized by a resident of the Odesa region in May 2024. He found men who wanted to illegally leave Ukraine through social networks and arranged payment. The men were transported to the state border, which they were to cross on foot.

The first 47 men were being transported to the border in four minibuses, laid out on mattresses, but they were stopped by law enforcement officers on the way. The remaining 53 did not manage to reach the “gathering point.”

The organizers planned to earn about a million dollars from this group of draft dodgers. To facilitate this, a law enforcement officer advised the drivers on how to bypass checkpoints.

The organizer and the law enforcement officer are already in pre-trial detention. They were given a preventive measure in the form of detention for 60 days with the right to post bail: the organizer’s bail was set at 13.6 million UAH (312,509 euros), and the law enforcement officer’s bail was set at 3 million UAH (68,935 euros).