Seafarers were recruited to transport illegal migrants in Mykolaiv

The SSU (Security Service of Ukraine) has blocked an illegal channel for the employment of Ukrainian seafarers on vessels. As law enforcement officers found out, these vessels specialized in the illegal transportation of migrants to the EU.

In Mykolaiv, the SSU stopped the activities of an international criminal group. The organizers have attracted seafarers, who were promised jobs with good salaries on long-distance vessels abroad. Ultimately, seafarers were sent abroad, where they were employed as captains and crew members on vessels to transport illegal migrants from Central Asia to the EU. This was reported by the SSU press service.

When recruiting seafarers, members of the group gave priority to those who had problems with documents or those who could not get a job in their specialty on their own.

In total, six people participated in the established network. The organizer was a foreigner who paid 7 thousand dollars for one recruited seafarer to his Ukrainian partner. Of this amount, $3,000 was paid to the recruited seafarer, and the rest was distributed between the organizer, a citizen of Ukraine, and the “recruiters”.

One of the organizers and his accomplice have already been detained. They were informed of suspicion on the article «trafficking in human beings».