REUTERS/Alexey Pavlishak
Russian military commissars in Crimea have reportedly come up with a new scam to get rich using the bodies of dead soldiers—by extorting the grieving family members.
That’s according to the human rights group Crimea SOS, which reported Thursday that military commissars have been lying to family members of soldiers killed in Ukraine about the whereabouts of their remains. While the bodies are already stored at a morgue in Simferopol, the group says, military officials tell families they have to pay an extra fee to have the remains retrieved from the battlefield.
“They offer a fee of about 100,000-150,000 rubles for carrier services. The ‘commissars’ explain this scheme [by citing] the inconvenient location of the body and its transportation, otherwise it will be a long wait for the body,” Crimea SOS said.