Corruption Stalks Ukraine's Cemeteries as Officials Profit From Dead Soldiers
ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine—In the spring of 2023, as war raged in Ukraine, a funeral director and a local government worker met in a city cemetery to make a cash deal for the rights to transport a particularly macabre cargo: 23 dead soldiers.
Prosecutors say the official agreed to give the funeral director the contract to bring the bodies from a morgue in Dnipro in return for a quarter of the money the council would pay. They say that later that month, the funeral director met the official to hand him his 13,200 hryvnia cut, some $320.
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