In Cherkasy, racketeers extort money from relatives of fallen Ukrainian soldiers
25 June 2024 09:10
In Cherkasy, the Security Service of Ukraine detained racketeers who extorted money from the families of fallen soldiers of the Defence Forces. This was reported by "Komersant Ukrainian" with reference to the SBU press service.
The SBU, in cooperation with the National Police, neutralised a criminal group that terrorised and kept residents of Cherkasy in fear. Among the victims are relatives of fallen Ukrainian soldiers.
The law enforcement documented the fact of extortion of five million hryvnias from the family of a Ukrainian serviceman killed at the front. The criminals learnt that the military man’s wife and his 20-year-old son had received financial assistance from the state. After that, the gang members tried to “knock off” their percentage.
“In order to intimidate the victims, the criminals persecuted the young man and threatened to make him disabled, and put psychological pressure on his mother through phone calls,”
– the SBU reported.
At the same time, the criminals had little money. They demanded that the victims unreasonably recognise one of them as the illegitimate son of the fallen defender. In this way, they wanted to avoid mobilisation and flee abroad with the money.
The SBU detained two members of the criminal group as they were receiving part of the money. The detainees were local criminals who specialised in extorting non-existent debts from residents of Cherkasy.
The detainees have already been served with a notice of suspicion of extortion, which caused property damage on a particularly large scale, committed under martial law.
The racketeers are in custody. They face up to 12 years in prison with confiscation of property. Their involvement in other serious crimes is also being checked.
