Ukrainians Meet Scammers as They Flee War With Russia

Ukrainians fleeing war with Russia for the United States have come across suspected scammers trying to exploit a government humanitarian support initiative for financial gain, Newsweek can reveal.

Three Ukrainians described the attempts they had seen to use social media to take advantage of Uniting for Ukraine (U4U), a program President Joe Biden's administration announced in response to Russian President Vladimir Putin's February 2022 full-scale invasion, whereby displaced people with sponsors enter the country for two years on a temporary basis. According to the sources they were asked for payment for sponsorship.

Under the program, sponsors agree to support Ukrainian beneficiaries for the duration of their stay. They are not offered financial support from the government and it is understood that there is a financial obligation for sponsors to support beneficiaries.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) conducts background and security checks on sponsors to determine their financial ability to support their beneficiary and to protect against possible exploitation.

However, prior to finding benefactors, some Ukrainians are being contacted by people seeking thousands of dollars in return for offers of sponsorship.

The Ukrainian citizens Newsweek spoke to did not make payments to those messaging them. However, the sources said they believed they were being scammed. Regardless, soliciting payment from beneficiaries through the initiative is not its purpose, a source familiar with the matter told Newsweek.

A USCIS spokesperson told Newsweek they have told the public to be wary of scams and individuals posing as USCIS officials and said legitimate agency staff will never contact individuals on social media.

They said that fake social media accounts and cases of impersonation fraud are referred to the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Office of Inspector General for further investigation. Newsweek contacted the DHS for comment.

They added that beneficiaries should exercise caution when contacted by people online who ask for compensation for sponsorship or ask for identification documents about them.

A spokesperson for Meta, Facebook's parent company, said the company was committed to making its technology safer so users could avoid scams.

Some 187,000 Ukrainians had entered the U.S. through the initiative by April 2024 and officials had approved more than 236,000 cases, according to CBS News, citing figures from the DHS. Another 350,000 have arrived in the U.S. through other schemes including via obtaining temporary visas.

Serhii Antonov, a 34-year-old manufacturing equipment mechanic from the front-line Donetsk region fled to the Czech Republic in October 2022 with his disabled wife, his 18-year-old daughter and his 9-year-old son, but said moving to the U.S. "is our dream." Ukrainian citizens who lived in the country prior to the February 2022 invasion and were displaced due to it are eligible for the U4U initiative.

Antonov said he had been looking for a sponsor for five months but had only found "scammers."

In screenshots seen by Newsweek of one conversation he had with a woman on Facebook, he was told: "I will provide you a sponsor through the immigration organization OK. You will be required to pay a fee after receiving sponsorship application approval letter."

The woman he had messaged added that the fee was $800.

A Lot of Scams

Yana, who asked Newsweek only to use her first name to protect her identity, a 32-year-old police officer, lives in Kharkiv, an active combat zone near the Russian border. She found a sponsor in June on Facebook having spent six months searching fruitlessly. But before finding legitimate help, she told Newsweek she had seen "a lot of scams" from people asking for as much as $2,000 for sponsorship.

"As soon as a person posts a post about finding a sponsor for the u4u program, scammers immediately start writing to this person," she said. "They write in DM [direct message] and immediately indicate that their services will cost a certain amount.

"Some are more sophisticated and they do not ask for any payment immediately, but they begin to ask after they allegedly received confirmation of the application and now it is necessary to issue a travel authorization. The scammers provide fake data and simply deceive for money.

"There were also cases when scammers receive full data on the applicant and then begin to threaten that on his behalf they will send offensive letters to all government agencies of America and force them to pay money to these scammers."

Yana said she had deleted the messages she had received and blocked the senders.

Speaking to Newsweek under the condition of anonymity, one Ukrainian, who said she had been looking for a sponsor for a few weeks, said she had received messages from people asking for money after she posted in Facebook groups aimed at connecting people with sponsors.

"There are a few schemes, I guess," they said. "One said [she] could become my sponsor for $200, then she started sending me accounts of random people to pay, applying pressure on me that she could cancel the application and I will be rejected etc.

"They all want to get money from you by any means. Others ask for $2,500 for their services and say they are agencies. Is it true? You don't know till you try. Some ask less. They all sit on Facebook in groups helping Ukrainians. But they don't intend to help."

Newsweek obtained screenshots of a Facebook conversation between the Ukrainian citizen and a woman who attempted to solicit payment by sending them bank details. In one message, the woman threatened to cancel their application for sponsorship after the Ukrainian indicated in a message that they weren't comfortable making payments to "random people's accounts."

She said in the messages: "I really don't understand the sudden silence, this is the reason I don't like helping some certain Ukrainianse [sic], just because you have gotten a response from the USCIS you think I can't cancel your application? when I still have your receipt tracking number funny."

Another message read: "Don't do something you will regret cause it doesn't take me anything to cancel your application and the next thing you will receive a rejection email, please act rightly or let me know you aren't interested so I can cancel your application Thanks."

Newsweek has also seen messages in a Telegram group from frustrated Ukrainians warning others of potential scammers they have found on Facebook groups and sharing screenshots of messages from people asking for money.

There were also Telegram accounts posing as government immigration officials, something USCIS confirmed was fake.

Newsweek contacted some of individuals referred to in this story accused of scamming Ukrainians, but they did not respond.

Jennifer Snell Moak, who works for North America for Ukraine, a nonprofit that connects Ukrainian beneficiaries with vetted sponsors, told Newsweek that someone recently impersonated her on Facebook by creating a fake profile. She said that when she contacted the social media platform, they removed the profile.

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