The diplomatic service opens up various grey schemes for unscrupulous employees
On the first day of spring, March 1, the State Bureau of Investigation and the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) reported that during a search of diplomats crossing the border with Poland, they found cigarettes worth 1,5 million hryvnias and 16 kg of gold. This is not the first and, unfortunately, certainly not the last case of unscrupulous diplomats abusing their official positions and using diplomatic immunities and privileges to smuggle contraband into Ukraine. "Apostrophe" I looked into the opportunities the diplomatic service offers for this dirty activity and whether it can really be stopped.
News reports regularly report various smuggling schemes involving Ukrainian diplomats. On March 1, it was reported that the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs recalled two employees of the Ukrainian Embassy in Poland who were detained at the border. According to the Security Service of Ukraine, which handled the operation, the embassy representatives were illegally transporting $125, €67, 16 kilograms of gold jewelry, and 2974 cartons of cigarettes, worth an estimated 1,5 million hryvnias, across the Ukrainian state border into the European Union using a diplomatic Mercedes Sprinter minibus.
Interestingly, these "irregular" transportations involved a driver from the Ukrainian Embassy in Poland and one of the secretaries of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry's representative office. Also implicated were an employee of the State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine in the Zakarpattia Oblast, a former embassy employee, and the latter's son, then the consular attaché at the Ukrainian Embassy in Poland.
This isn't the first high-profile case involving diplomatic privileges and their misuse. However, despite Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba's response, which declared such activity by diplomats unacceptable, the incident was effectively hushed up.
On his Facebook page, prominent diplomat and Vice President of the Foreign Policy Association, Oleksandr Kupchyshyn, drew attention to the palliative nature of the Foreign Ministry's decisions. "It's surprising that the Foreign Ministry focused all its attention on the frivolous status of a junior diplomat and the Embassy's driver. Not a single comment from the Foreign Ministry mentions Ukrainian Ambassador to Poland A. Deshchytsia, who bears full responsibility for the Embassy's activities," he noted.
"Any ambassador understands that all travel logistics should be under the control of the diplomatic mission and based on the relevant travel order. If the ambassador doesn't oversee the cargo transported by the embassy's vehicles, then it's a complete mess, and the embassy requires a complete overhaul," emphasized Alexander Kupchishin.
Ukrainian style or Soviet practice?
Similar cases of smuggling by individual diplomats regularly make headlines. For example, in 2020, at the Tisa checkpoint of the Zakarpattia customs office, a Toyota SUV with diplomatic license plates, driven by Ukrainian citizen Yuriy Ignatko, was stopped while attempting to exit Ukraine through the green corridor. During passport control, Ignatko presented an ID card from the Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Latvia in Uzhhorod, which raised suspicions among the checkpoint staff that it was counterfeit. However, for about an hour, Ignatko refused to allow the vehicle to be searched or exit it, citing his immunity.
The trick was that the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations does not provide for privileges for this category of persons. Therefore, the car was forcibly opened, and the offender was subjected to physical force and handcuffs. 6550 packs of cigarettes in three suitcases were found in the car in which Ignatko crossed the border. Although the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed from a photo that he was indeed the consul, they noted that the document Ignatko presented was of an unspecified type and was not issued by the State Protocol Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. This sparked a serious diplomatic scandal, leading the Latvians to recall Ignatko from his position as honorary consul.
Another high-profile incident occurred in 2016, when a cargo van with diplomatic license plates was detained at the Ukrainian-Slovak border. Inside, 60 packs of cigarettes were discovered, which the driver attempted to pass off as diplomatic cargo. The smuggler turned out to be Serhiy Lishchyshyn, husband of Oksana Lishchyshyn, First Secretary of the Ukrainian Embassy in Slovakia. She reportedly wrote a letter bearing the embassy's seal, confirming the "inviolability" of the cargo. This means that the smuggling was compounded by document forgery. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for its part, immediately acknowledged the problem and promised to punish all those responsible, hinting at the ambassador's possible involvement.
However, no serious punishment followed. A day after the media coverage, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs recalled Ms. Lishchyshyn to Ukraine, but she quickly went on vacation, apparently with the help of Ukraine's Ambassador to Slovakia, Oleh Havashi. Some time later, President Petro Poroshenko finally fired Oleh Havashi. Oksana Lishchyshyn, despite being dismissed from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, filed an appeal and... managed to secure a court ruling requiring her to pay only a fine of 1700 hryvnias for violating customs regulations (remember, this was for an attempt to smuggle cigarettes worth 620 hryvnias). However, for some reason, the judge who rendered the ruling resigned immediately afterward.
However, most smuggling schemes remain "behind the scenes," and this is explained by the fact that these schemes have long been "protected" not only at the ambassadorial level, but also by senior officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as well as other structures associated with international activities.
Overall, as experienced diplomats told Apostrophe on condition of anonymity, smuggling activity has its roots back in the Soviet era, when Soviet diplomats returning home would carry scarce foreign goods, which they could then profit from by selling back in the USSR. The police and courts couldn't punish diplomatic couriers because of their immunity, and the authorities were reluctant, as this was one of the main informal privileges enjoyed by Foreign Ministry employees. However, the Soviet Union collapsed, but the system remained.
And these schemes are now operating not only in Ukraine. For example, in 2016, nearly 400 kilograms of cocaine were found in a school attached to the Russian embassy in Buenos Aires, allegedly being prepared for shipment to Moscow. Security services detained five people suspected of drug trafficking, including a former embassy employee who allegedly prepared the cocaine for shipment. The story is replete with discrepancies between official accounts of the incident, but the overall situation demonstrates that diplomatic channels are fully equipped for smuggling and drug trafficking.
Why some diplomats get involved in smuggling
Like most similar stories, this one comes down to money. Or rather, the salaries of ordinary MFA employees. To better understand the situation, let's head to the official website career.gov.ua, where most civil service vacancies are posted, and look at the official salaries of Ukrainian MFA employees, both abroad and domestically. They can't be described as anything other than ridiculous.
For example, the net salary, before bonuses and allowances, of the Third Secretary for Consular Affairs at the Embassy of Ukraine in the Republic of India is expected to be 5,810 hryvnias. Meanwhile, the future Head of the Trade, Economic, and Sectoral Cooperation Section of the EU and NATO Department will be able to "spoil" themselves with 12,012 hryvnias. To be fair, these salaries are announced without any allowances or bonuses, but in any case, for professionals at the level of embassy counselors abroad or department heads at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this is not a small amount.
This is where we should look for the reasons why diplomats are prone to smuggling activities.
Diplomat's privileges – features, nuances, pitfalls
As is well known, diplomatic agents' personal baggage is exempt from inspection. However, there are two caveats: first, inspections are possible if there are serious grounds to believe it contains items whose import or export is prohibited by law or regulated by the host country's quarantine regulations. Second, baggage pertaining only to Ukrainian diplomats' international assignments is inviolable.
"Ukrainian diplomats only receive diplomatic immunity and privileges when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs sends them to foreign countries. On Ukrainian soil, our diplomats have the same rights as ordinary citizens," international lawyer Anna Slyusarenko, a former employee of the Ukrainian consular service, told Apostrophe.
However, it's not all that simple. Diplomatic work abroad has its own set of pitfalls that put diplomats in extremely difficult situations. For example, in some countries, it's impossible to deposit a diplomat's salary in a bank, which can lead to unpleasant consequences.
"Imagine there's a country where if I deposit my salary in the bank, it could all be lost tomorrow due to the host country's economic instability. And so, many diplomats leaving such countries for Ukraine have to carry their entire salary in suitcases. Many try not to declare it and try to keep a low profile, as this poses two dangers. First, there was a precedent where a diplomat declared his entire salary for a three-year assignment abroad and smuggled it across the border in suitcases. As a result, customs confiscated the diplomat's salary, and only a month later was it proven in court that it was a diplomatic employee's salary, which could not be transferred through a bank. "Secondly, many diplomats are afraid to inform customs in such situations that they are carrying their own hard-earned money, since it's unknown what will happen to it after customs—whether they will be robbed by criminals tipped off by unscrupulous customs officers who are in on the scheme," one authoritative former ambassador told Apostrophe.
Personnel decides everything
According to former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, there will always be those who try to violate the law. The question is how to minimize such incidents.
"When crossing the border, law enforcement agencies have the ability to stop and check a diplomat if there are grounds for doing so. Therefore, preventing such incidents is the responsibility of the relevant agencies. And, of course, this is a matter of personnel policy, particularly at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs: who is selected, how they are chosen, and how the candidates' responsibility is verified. It's like the process of selecting judges in our country, who have certain powers and certain immunities to protect themselves from unfounded searches and other such matters. But the question isn't what powers they have, but who appoints them, on what basis, and to what extent they meet the relevant qualifications. It's obvious that people shouldn't be sent multiple times to a neighboring country. Furthermore, we need to consider who is being sent there, whether it's worth sending people with roots in border regions, and so on. There are many elements of a professional personnel policy, as long as it's not motivated by anything other than maintaining the high standards of the diplomatic service. Therefore, the issue isn't about rules, but about people," says Konstantin Grishchenko.
Ideally, a professional personnel policy should become the new frontline in the fight against "diplomat smugglers," helping to minimize such cases. But is the government prepared to radically revise the salaries of rank-and-file diplomats, who are forced to commit crimes due to chronic poverty?
Constantine Soborny
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