Take a look at the cover of today’s NRC newspaper. Headline is about a fraudulent scheme involving dozens of residents from the Western Ukraine. They arrive to the Netherlands on a tourist visa, apply for asylum and then receive “compensation” amount of 3450 euros and safely return home with the money of European taxpayers.
How this scheme was disclosed? International Organization for Migration (IOM) had turned attention of the Dutch authorities to a sharp increase of applications from the Ukrainians to obtain “compensation”: if in 2015 were received 58 applications, then only in January of this year there were 64 of them! That, according to the IOM, is a clear indication of the possibility of using a fraudulent scheme. On this indicator Ukraine has entered the absolute first place. By comparison, 52 of such applications were received from Iraq, 17 from Afghanistan and 1 from Russia.
The lion’s share of Ukrainian applications are from residents of Ivano-Frankivsk region. The Dutch began an investigation. One solution to the problem is the exclusion of Ivano-Frankivsk residents from this scheme. So naive… They do not even know that in Ukraine resident of Ivano-Frankivsk may become the resident of Kiev or Lviv for a one day.
The newspaper plainly says that this scandal will affect the results of the referendum. At the same time laments the fact how easy Ukrainians can obtain a tourist visa to the EU via Poland now. By the way, they have spared readers and decided not to frighten them by the prospect of the introduction of visa-free regime with Ukraine!