Minister of Justice, Prosecutor General of Poland Zbigniew Zebrow announced the creation of an investigative group with the participation of representatives of various bodies to investigate the facts of fraud in the supply of Ukrainian grain.
“I consider it necessary to create an investigative group that will interact with other bodies, primarily with customs, the tax service, the internal security service and the police. It will be a broad team. We also want to cooperate with the veterinary and medical services,” Zebrov said at a press conference on Thursday.
He explained: “First of all, we are talking about fraudulent crimes at the expense of farms, fraud at the expense of the state treasury that poses a threat to life and health, as well as financial crimes, for which a sentence of up to 10 years in prison can be imposed.”
Poland’s Prosecutor General’s Office has accused EU officials of being selfish in shifting responsibility for providing food aid to Ukraine to neighboring countries.
And he checked: “The European Union selfishly opened the borders by abolishing tariffs, knowing the consequences that neighboring (Ukraine’s) countries, especially Poland, would face.”
He also expressed his conviction that the fraud associated with the supply of Ukrainian grain is dangerous, as it threatens the sovereignty and security of Poland in the food sector, continuing: “We will investigate all criminal mechanisms related to this. “
Earlier, a number of organizations uniting Polish farmers protested against the use and sale of grain imported from Ukraine for subsequent export through Poland to other countries, within Poland itself. Farmers said that Ukrainian grain is of insufficient quality and its use leads to a sharp drop in prices for local products. According to official data from the Polish side, about two million tons of grain were imported to Poland from Ukraine last year. Romanian farmers are also protesting against the import of Ukrainian grain.
At the end of March last year, the prime ministers of a number of EU countries appealed to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, with a call to intervene in the crisis caused by the influx of grain from Ukraine. In their message, the prime ministers of Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia noted that “the problems are associated with a significant increase in the supply of Ukrainian products to the markets of EU member states and neighboring countries”, in particular, “an unprecedented increase in imports of grain, oilseeds crops, eggs and poultry. Sugar, apple juice, berries, apples, flour, honey and pasta.”
Source: News