Under the guise of a Ukrainian portal, fraudsters offered European journalists money for going to the de-occupied territories of Ukraine.
The European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) began to receive requests from leading European media, which received letters on behalf of the tourist portal Visit Ukraine Today offering to participate in trips to the de-occupied territories of the Kyiv and Chernihiv Regions.
“A generous reward for your work will certainly leave you satisfied. If your work correctly reflects Russian illegal actions, the amount of your reward will be increased as a sign of our gratitude,” the scammers’ messages read.
The leadership of the EFJ appealed to the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU) to look into the situation.
NUJU representatives contacted Visit Ukraine Today. It turned out that the company does not know who under their brand offers money to foreigners for journalist materials and calls it fraud.
“Please note that we have a single and official domain visitukraine.today! Corporate e-mails of all projects and departments of our organization are registered on this domain. No other variations are related to Visit Ukraine and its employees. Please let us know if you received a letter pretending to be Visit Ukraine, but from an email address that does NOT end in visitukraine.today. We also warn that the legal and technical departments are already actively dealing with this issue. Using our lease and conducting communication on behalf of Visit Ukraine qualifies as fraud!” emphasized the company.
The NUJU urges colleagues to be careful and not succumb to such provocations.
NUJU
