Carousel at "Yahodyn": How the Khursyak clan uses "dead zones" of cameras for smuggling fish and meat

Carousel at "Yahodyn": How the Khursyak clan uses "dead zones" of cameras for smuggling fish and meat

I see a certain interest in the topic of smuggling fish and meat at the "Yahodyn" checkpoint, so I’ll add a few details.

The scheme of swapping license plates on trucks is as old as time and has existed since the 90s. The question is how it is still possible now—in the conditions of total digitalization and cameras covering every meter of the border.

For context: there are about 200 surveillance cameras at "Yahodyn," yet everything is arranged in such a way that a few blind spots are preserved, where several trucks can "hide."

Quite a convenient loophole, which has been used to make the scheme work. And not just for fish and meat related to Khursyak, but for other "topics" as well.

How the scheme worked:

Two outwardly identical trucks enter the checkpoint. One carries smuggled goods, the other carries cover goods.

In our case, the cover was salt, and the contraband was fish or meat.

The truck with salt goes for processing, submits documents for salt, and heads to the scanner.

After passing it, it parks in a blind spot.

Next to it, the second truck—with the contraband—parks as well.

The drivers swap the license plates on the trucks.

The truck that just completed processing as "salt" submits documents for processing again—but now with different license plates.

It is sent for inspection again, while the truck with fish or meat—now bearing the already processed license plates—calmly leaves the checkpoint and heads to the warehouse.

The smugglers’ profit is threefold:

First—economic.

Saving a few thousand dollars on customs allows them to compete within the country against those who import goods legally.

Second—veterinary certificates. And this is the main point.

You can bring fish or meat into Ukraine that would never pass veterinary control and be allowed on the country’s market. Expired, thawed, or unsellable goods—everything that should be disposed of in the EU—is bought up and brought into Ukraine without documents.

Third—bypassing import quotas for fish/meat.

I’ll repeat: the organizer and curator of the scheme is a customs officer with 30 years of experience, Mykola Khursyak, who is currently the head of VMO-2 at the railway checkpoint of the Volyn Customs "Rymachi."

Together with his son and involving another former customs officer, Mykola Shvydkyi (Khursyak Sr.’s godfather), they organized this meat-and-fish carousel, which has been destroying an entire industry within the country for several years.

And it’s not like the Khursyaks are that influential.

For some reason, the customs leadership simply can’t muster the strength to do anything about the Khursyak clan.

Just like with the blind spots of cameras at "Yahodyn."

They don’t just exist—they are actively used.