Ukraine Battles Smugglers as Europe Keeps Close Eye
KUCHURGAN, Ukraine — It did not take long for the European Union's border experts to spot evidence of the shadowy trade on Ukraine's notoriously porous border with Moldova. It came in an unexpected form, though: Tyson frozen chicken.In a recent six months, more than 40,000 tons of chicken was shipped, legally, into Transnistria through Black Sea ports in Ukraine, said experts sent by the European Union this year to monitor the border.The chicken is reloaded into smaller trucks, often with makeshift refrigeration, and smuggled back into Ukraine. There it is sold below market rates, because it evaded customs duties and Ukrainian sanitary inspections, turning hefty profit — for whom, exactly, is not clear — of nearly $1,000 a ton. "They make more money than they would dealing with weapons," said Joachim Haack, a German who is in charge of the European Union's outpost here. The racket represents the murky economy that has sustained Transnistria, a ragged ribbon of territory along Moldova's eastern border, since it declared its independence from Moldova in 1992.
The European Union's experts have no enforcement powers, but since they began monitoring, the Ukrainians have increased their patrols and their seizures of contraband. Already this year the authorities have seized 400 tons of chicken returning to Ukraine, a small fraction of the total smuggled, experts say.
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