INTERACTION OF INVESTIGATORS WITH INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN ORGANIZATIONS DURING THE INVESTIGATION OF ILLEGAL USE OF HUMANITARIAN AID

Abstract

The scientific article provides a comprehensive criminalistics and criminal procedural analysis of the interaction between investigators of the National Police of Ukraine and international humanitarian and charitable organizations during the investigation of crimes stipulated in Article 201-2 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. Based on empirical data and the analysis of official judicial statistics from the period of 2022–2026, the paper reveals a substantial gap between the number of registered criminal proceedings and cases successfully sent to court with a bill of indictment. The author determines that the primary obstacle to high-quality pre-trial investigation lies in the transborder nature of humanitarian goods and the difficulties of prompt asset status verification. The study investigates the tactical and procedural specificities of cooperation with international institutional donors (such as the UN, UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP, and the ICRC), large European nongovernmental organizations, and global financial intelligence networks (including EGMONT). Special academic and practical attention is paid to the international legal immunities of UN and ICRC personnel, which impose significant legal boundaries on conventional investigation measures and require voluntary engagement through official diplomatic channels. The main scientific outcome of the research is a newly developed four-stage tactical algorithm for investigators. It sequentially integrates initial custom monitoring through automated digital verification systems, verification of foreign donor entities via Interpol and Europol databases, economic audit of primary financial documentation alongside tax reports of non-profit entities, and ultimate procedural consolidation of evidence. The paper substantiates that recognizing foreign donor organizations as victims under Article 55 of the Criminal Procedural Code of Ukraine via their accredited domestic branches is the most effective way to legally acquire original foreign records, bypassing the prolonged international legal assistance procedure. Furthermore, the necessity of mandatory simultaneous assignment of forensic economic and forensic commodity expert examinations is justified to establish the market value of free goods and objectively calculate the exact scale of illegal profit.