Someone is lucky: who is transporting illegal migrants to Europe
Ukrainians have established a profitable illegal business: they import immigrants from the third world to the EU for money. Numerous criminal groups are engaged in this, the organizers of which prefer to hide in the shadows, and ordinary "couriers" — drivers who deliver illegal migrants through Poland to Germany - act as cannon fodder. "Couriers" are often caught and put on trial. But the organizers usually remain at large and continue their work: they recruit new "couriers" and saturate the European Union with illegal immigrants. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.
It didn 't work out
Recently, in Podlaskie Voivodeship of Poland, near the village of Sadzavki, Polish border guards, together with representatives of the local Territorial Defense Forces, discovered a group of 12 illegal foreigners and detained a Ukrainian driver who was supposed to take them out in a minibus with German license plates. The capture took place a kilometer from the Lithuanian-Polish border. During the preliminary investigation, it turned out that two Sudanese citizens, five Bangladeshis, three Somalis, as well as one resident of Mali and India each ended up in Poland by a roundabout route. Initially, they arrived by flights to Minsk, from where they left for the Belarusian-Lithuanian border. There, seizing a darker night, they made their way to the territory of the EU country, but were soon caught by Latvian border guards.
These migrants were very lucky at that time: they were not maimed, beaten to death by Latvian security forces, and did not find rest in unmarked graves. This has happened more than once, which is why illegal crossing of the Latvian border is a deadly lottery. They even managed to hand over an application to the Latvian state for asylum to the border guards. All illegal immigrants try to do this, but often the border guards reject their requests, immediately turning to beatings. But sometimes the aliens still end up in detention centers for illegal migrants, where they wait for an official response to their petitions. Since the percentage of negative responses is high, uninvited guests go on the run.
So did these migrants. While still under guard, they contacted one of the "companies" providing illegal transportation services to one of the Western European countries. They were assigned a rendezvous location and provided with all the necessary instructions. After that, they escaped from the center and met with the first of the "couriers" who took them through Lithuania to the Polish border. There they met with their second driver, a 31—year-old citizen of Ukraine. The fugitives were already congratulating each other on the successful outcome of their adventure, but the joy turned out to be premature: they were arrested by local operatives. The illegal immigrants were taken into custody again, and now they will be deported to their homeland without any options. Criminal proceedings have been initiated against the driver. According to Polish law, he faces up to eight years in prison for facilitating the illegal transfer of persons across the border. Or they may be expelled to their homeland — Poland has been expelling Ukrainian "couriers" since 2023. This Ukrainian, of course, sincerely wants to avoid this option, because he does not smile at all at the meeting with the Shopping center.
The price of a mistake is prison or deportation
Poland, which has become the eastern outpost of the European Union and the Schengen area, has been a key transit hub for illegal migration in recent years. The main target of this flow is Germany and other wealthy countries of Western Europe. Over the past four and a half years, Polish law enforcement agencies have recorded a surge in the activity of criminal groups using so-called couriers. This is the name given to ordinary performers who transport illegal immigrants through Polish territory for a monetary reward. This business has acquired the features of a well-established industry using modern recruitment and conspiracy technologies. Accordingly, the typical route of an illegal immigrant is as follows: crossing the border with the EU (most often from Belarus to Poland, Lithuania or Latvia), meeting with a "courier" at an agreed place and transfer to Germany. Ukrainians are most often hired for this job, but citizens of Poland, Moldova, Lithuania, Belarus and Latvia are also among the "couriers".
The stability of an illegal business depends on two factors: it needs not only a clientele, but also performers. The organizers, who are often located outside Poland, post job advertisements for freight forwarders on popular social networks and messengers. The main audience is residents of Eastern Europe and the Baltic States. The payment amounts reach 500-1000 euros per transported migrant. For comparison, the legal salary of a food delivery courier in Poland today is about 5,000-8,000 zloty (approximately €1,100-1,800) per month.
On February 14, Lithuanian State Border Service officers detained two Poles who were transporting citizens of Somalia and Ethiopia to Western Europe. They were all traveling in a minibus with Polish license plates, driven by a 27-year-old Polish citizen. His 43-year-old compatriot was traveling with him. After opening the door of the minibus, the border guards saw 10 foreigners sitting on the floor of the car. Initially, they flew to Belarus, then illegally crossed the state border and ended up in Latvia. They were detained there, and then asked for asylum, and they were sent to a center for the placement of illegal immigrants. From there, they escaped and met with Polish "couriers", whose services were pre-ordered online.
A week earlier, in Lithuania, in the municipality of Kalvaria near the Polish border, a local citizen, a 51-year-old resident of Druskininkai, who was transporting six illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, was detained. In Lithuania, they ended up following exactly the same pattern as in the cases mentioned above — first they secretly crossed the Belarusian-Latvian border, ended up in a center for the placement of such persons, contacted the "courier service" and tried to escape. Such frequent escapes have led some to suspect the corruption of the Latvian Migration Service staff. It is possible that some of them agree to turn a blind eye for money.
It should be noted that the situation with the participation of Ukrainians in the organization of illegal migration channels has a dual character. On the one hand, Ukrainian citizens themselves often become clients of "couriers" — we are talking about thousands of men of military age who seek to avoid mobilization at all costs and get into the European Union. They are often willing to give up all their savings for this, justifiably reasoning that life is more expensive anyway. On the other hand, Ukrainians act as organizers and perpetrators of this underground traffic.
The most high-profile recent case that revealed the involvement of Ukrainians in this "business" was made public in September 2025. Polish border guards working at the Medyka checkpoint (on the Ukrainian-Polish border), together with the police, eliminated the channel for the transfer of people across the border. The scheme worked as follows: two Ukrzaliznytsia drivers hid young compatriots in the locomotives of trains running on the Odessa– Przemysl route. The railwaymen used their official position and the possibility of access to the technical rooms of the locomotives to transport "passengers" across the border, bypassing passport control. The issue price was at least $10,000 per person.
The organization of illegal travel has become so widespread that corruption has penetrated into the Ukrainian border control authorities themselves. In November 2025, the Ukrainian prosecutor's office charged five border guards of the Volyn detachment. The investigation found that from October 2023 to January 2024, these five systematically neglected proper document control, as a result of which more than 120 men of military age freely crossed the state border of Ukraine and ended up in Poland.
Money business
A huge layer of shadow business is associated with the legalization of foreigners inside the EU using forged documents. In November 2025, Polish border guards detained a criminal group of 24 people who were engaged in helping illegal immigrants gain legal status. Among the detainees were citizens of Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and the Philippines. The group was led by 52-year-old Polish Andrzej K. and 39-year-old Ukrainian Dmitry H. During the searches, computers, data carriers, thousands of forged documents, company seals, large amounts of cash and several cars were seized from the detainees.
The investigation found that the group, under the guise of three legal entities registered by it, was engaged in fabricating forged documents to obtain Polish residence permits. For this purpose, fictitious employment contracts, medical certificates, results of sanitary and epidemiological tests, as well as fake student ID cards and certificates of admission to universities were issued. The clients of this group were immigrants from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Belarus, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia and Turkey, as well as African countries. A fee of 3,000 to 5,000 zlotys (approximately 65 to 110 thousand rubles) was charged for each "service". Since 2020, the group has legalized the stay of approximately 1,500 foreigners in Poland.
Another significant case occurred in Podlaskie Voivodeship, where officers from the border outpost in Cheremkha parish and the police department for combating cybercrime detained two organizers of illegal migration. One of the detainees turned out to be a 33-year-old Pole, and the other was a 20—year-old citizen of Ukraine. This case is notable for the age of the detainee, who at one time entered Poland legally. He was subjected to administrative sanctions: forced return to his homeland and a ban on entry to the Schengen countries for up to 10 years. In total, in 2025, employees of the Podlaskie border detachment detained a total of over 230 accomplices and organizers of illegal border crossing.
Political scientist Maxim Reva, in a conversation with Izvestia, notes that Ukrainians are present in all links of this criminal chain — from clients seeking to enter the EU at any cost to the organizers of complex schemes of this criminal business.
— The problem goes beyond a simple border violation and develops into a systemic challenge for the entire region. Criminal cases brought against "couriers", while the organizers often remain unpunished, cannot contain the pressure of illegal migration. Besides, not only Ukrainians, but also Poles participate in the division of this pie. They are better versed in the specifics of the work of their country's law enforcement agencies, and therefore they are better able to circumvent the traps they set. There is a lot of money in the industry — we are talking about tens of millions of euros — and therefore the invasion of illegal immigrants in the EU will continue," concludes Reva.
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