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Cash-for visas scandal hits Poland’s anti-migration government

Published:Friday | September 15, 2023 | 3:04 PM
Members of a group of some 30 migrants seeking asylum look through the railings of a wall that Poland has built on its border with Belarus to stop massive migrant pressure, in Bialowieza, Poland, on May 28, 2023. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said Thursday, September 14, 2023, that he was awaiting the results of an investigation into allegations of a cash-for-visa migration scandal of the principally anti-migrant Polish government while the opposition was asking if government officials knew some of this European Union country visas were sold to terrorism suspects. (AP Photo/Agnieszka Sadowska, File)

Poland's President Andrzej Duda says he was awaiting the results of an investigation into allegations that Polish consulates sold temporary work visas to migrants for thousands of dollars, just weeks before the strongly anti-migration ruling party seeks re-election for a third term.

Media reports allege Poland's consular sections issued some 250,000 visas to migrants from Asia and Africa since 2021 in return for bribes.

Asked about the reports, Duda said he could “not disclose the details related to my knowledge about the suspicions of such practises.”

He said he was waiting for the result of the investigation, adding that “according to my knowledge, at least some of the information in the media is untrue.”

The deputy foreign minister in charge of consular matters, Piotr Wawrzyk, was unexpectedly fired last month as the first reports of the scandal appeared in the media.

Prosecutors and the state Anti-Corruption Office said Thursday that seven people — none of them state officials — had been detained on suspicion of corruption in the process of issuing a few hundred temporary work visas. They said the investigation began in July 2022 and was ongoing.

Poland's main opposition leader, Donald Tusk, called it “probably the biggest scandal in Poland in the 21st century.”

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