Since the beginning of 2021, 1,000 attempts to bribe border guards have been documented. The total amount of funds offered to law enforcement officers amounted to 1.5 million hryvnias in national and foreign currency.

It is worth noting that this figure has increased by more than 60 percent compared to last year. During 9 months of last year, 380 attempts to bribe border guards were recorded, the amount of bribes offered then amounted to 800 thousand hryvnias.

Most often this year, and this is about 500 cases, bribe-takers offered illegal benefits for unimpeded crossing of the state border without the installation of the application "Home" or without self-isolation. There have also been more than 200 attempts to offer bribes to the State Border Guard Service for crossing the border without a negative PCR test or medical insurance certificate, which covers the costs associated with the treatment of COVID-19. Most of these offenses took place at checkpoints on the border with the EU and Belarus.

Other cases of attempts to bribe border guards during the first 9 months of 2021 were related to the proposal to "reconsider" the decision of the State Border Guard Service to deny entry to Ukraine. Such cases usually took place at the Boryspil and Odessa-Avia BCPs.

For example, a foreigner, a citizen of the Russian Federation, offered the border guard $ 1,000 to border guards to cancel the decision to deny him and his brother entry to Ukraine at the Boryspil airport.

Also, almost every day there are offers of illegal benefits to border guards in the EECP on the line of demarcation and on the administrative border with Crimea.

For example, at the Novotroitske entry exit check point, our countryman, born in 1996, on his way to the temporarily occupied territory, offered a border guard a bribe of $ 1,900 for his unimpeded passage through the demarcation line with a large sum of money.

It should also be noted that as a result of pre-trial investigations conducted on reports of internal security of the State Border Guard Service, mainly for receiving and providing bribes, the courts brought to justice 40 people. 21 border guards and 19 civilians were convicted.

The State Border Guard Service of Ukraine once again reminds that an offer, promise or provision of illegal benefit to an official, as well as acceptance of such promise, offer of illegal benefit by an official is an offense for which the law provides criminal liability.