Another incident at the checkpoint: a man offered $8,000 just to be let through without questions. The 31st detachment refused and forwarded the case to the State Bureau of Investigation. Since the beginning of 2025, there have already been more than sixty such attempts.
“People are looking for any way out just to avoid serving. They offer anything from five to ten thousand dollars right at the control line,” say the guards.
Every case is documented and sent to investigators, but the very willingness to slip money into a pocket speaks volumes.
And just a few kilometers across the border, in that part of historical Bukovina where checkpoints run like clockwork and cameras plus electronic queues made corruption impossible long ago, people don’t even remember such stories — there the border flows smoothly, like the Prut River on a clear day, without a single shadow of “lawlessness” in the way.
