Border Guard breaks group forging student certificates for foreigners' residence permits

A group selling student papers

On Thursday, 29 October 2026, the Border Guard announced that officers from its Rzeszów-Jasionka unit had broken up an organised criminal group. According to spokesman kpt. Piotr Zakielarz of the Bieszczady Border Guard Division, the group made and sold certificates confirming student or pupil status at Ukrainian universities and Polish post-secondary schools. Foreigners who presented these papers at voivodeship offices obtained positive decisions on residence and work permits. The network operated across Poland from June 2022 until the end of 2025.

What the forgeries offered

The group offered certificates from five Ukrainian universities, with Polish translations attached, along with documents from two post-secondary schools in Piotrków Trybunalski. Customers paid between 230 and 800 zloty for a single document or a full package. The buyers were foreigners from Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus and Georgia who were working in Poland. The documents were aimed at people aged 26 or under, and the spokesman explained what that status meant for them.

“Obtaining such documents by foreigners who had not yet passed their 26th year was linked, among other things, to the employer being exempt from paying contributions to ZUS.”

The exemption made staying in Poland considerably easier for that age group. Investigators established that the scheme was not confined to the Podkarpackie Voivodeship Office and also reached other voivodeship offices.

How the case was cracked

Investigators from the Rzeszów-Jasionka unit first picked up the group's trail in 2024. The decisive lead came from a Border Guard liaison officer working inside the Podkarpackie Voivodeship Office in Rzeszów. The District Prosecutor's Office for the City of Rzeszów supervises the case. At the end of 2025, officers searched six premises in Pruszcz Gdański, Żyrardów, Warsaw and Kraków, as well as in other parts of the country. Three Ukrainian citizens were detained in that first round, including a 42-year-old leader, from whom 87 thousand zloty in cash was seized.

Charges and custody

The leader was charged with leading an organised criminal group and placed in pre-trial custody, while six other members were released under non-custodial measures. Investigators established that about 1.2 million zloty from the criminal activity had reached the leader's bank accounts. More members were detained in the following months. Charges have been brought against 19 Ukrainian citizens, three Moldovan citizens and a Georgian citizen, as well as foreigners who used the forged papers at voivodeship offices in Rzeszów and Łódź.

Cash seized from leader87,000

Funds traced to leader's bank accounts (about)1,200,000

Cash seized from leader

87000 PLN

Funds traced to leader's bank accounts (about)

1200000 PLN

Data from the article text

What comes next

The investigation is still running, and further detentions are not ruled out. The case is being handled by the prosecutor's office in Rzeszów, which is responsible for the proceedings against the group and the foreigners who used its documents.