A Ukrainian national was apprehended at the Polish-Ukrainian border with smuggled corals.
At the border crossing in Meditz, Polish customs officers detained a 52-year-old Ukrainian man who was attempting to illegally transport two specimens of corals protected by the Washington Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) across the border. The man did not have the necessary documentation for transporting the specimens. The case has been forwarded for investigation, and the offender paid a fine of 500 Polish zlotys.
At the border crossing in Medyka, on the Polish-Ukrainian border, customs officials discovered the illegal transportation of corals belonging to a 52-year-old Ukrainian citizen.
During a routine check of a car, two coral specimens were found in the passenger's luggage. According to the Polish National Tax and Customs Administration (KAS), the man did not have the necessary documents to transport the samples across the border of the European Union.
The corals belong to species protected by the Washington Convention on CITES, which regulates international trade in species of wild fauna and flora that are threatened with extinction, as well as products made from them. Due to the lack of the necessary permits, the samples were seized, and the case was forwarded to the Subcarpathian Customs and Tax Service in Przemyśl for further investigation.
The traveler was fined 500 złoty for violating the rules. In total, since the beginning of 2026, border guards in the Subcarpathian Voivodeship have detected over 850 specimens of species whose transport is regulated by the CITES convention.