Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko has demanded that law enforcement agencies in Zakarpattia region investigate illegal activities conducted by and against local customs officers.

"I have instructed to temporarily remove the senior customs officers from their duties and examine their activity. And the problem is not that we would like to find fault with customs officers only, yet we know facts that customs officers were forced to get into car trunks at the point of machine guns, and they were afraid of reporting [about that] then," Poroshenko said in Mukacheve in Zakarpattia region on Wednesday after his meeting with chiefs of the local law enforcement agencies.

Poroshenko then demanded that law enforcement agents and the newly appointed head of Zakarpattia regional state administration Hennadiy Moskal investigate every crime related to the customs office and bring those responsible to justice.

Poroshenko called on the new chiefs of the SBU security office and the Interior Ministry in the region to immediately investigate all the facts about the recent incidents in coordination with Moskal.