The Liuboml District Court of the Volyn Oblast has held the head of a private enterprise administratively liable for unlawfully reducing customs duties during the clearance of vehicles. The company director attempted to illegally obtain tariff preferences by utilizing forged European-standard documents. By court order, the offender is mandated to pay a fine equivalent to the damages caused to the state budget — over 443,000 UAH.
According to court records, Volodymyr Pazyn, the director of PE «Volpas», organized a vehicle import scheme from Czechia and Bulgaria. The customs declaration of the vehicles was handled by an authorized representative of LLC «Zakhidbrokservis».
In order to evade taxes and claim trade preferences (specifically, the code 410 duty exemption for goods originating in the EU), EUR.1 movement certificates were attached to 11 customs declarations. By exploiting this preferential regime, the total amount of calculated customs duties owed to the state budget was unlawfully reduced by 443.5 thousand UAH.
During a subsequent verification process, the State Customs Service of Ukraine submitted an official inquiry to foreign counterparts. The response from Polish authorities completely debunked the legitimacy of the submitted paperwork.
From the official response of the Polish authorities:
The specified 11 EUR.1 certificates were never validated by the Customs and Tax Administration in Łódź.
The document blanks were never issued by the Polish agency.
The exporter listed in the paperwork is entirely absent from the country’s counterparty database.
Furthermore, the Liuboml court highlighted blatant visual defects in the documentation. Box 11 of the certificates contained only a generic stamp impression, lacking the mandatory personalized numerical stamp of the customs official. The court emphasized that for a professional importer, such obvious formal defects should have served as a clear signal to withhold submission until the circumstances were clarified.
The enterprise director, Volodymyr Pazyn, failed to appear at the court hearing. Despite his absence, the court found him guilty of violating customs regulations under Article 485 of the Customs Code of Ukraine.
The court imposed a financial penalty in the form of a fine totaling 443.5 thousand UAH. However, the actual recovery of these funds into the state budget remains uncertain, as individuals involved in such schemes often turn out to be nominal directors («frontmen») of shell companies.