There was nothing obviously untoward about the woman who approached the Palanca border crossing between Ukraine and Moldova with a 15-year-old boy she said was her nephew. But something about the pair just seemed odd. The boy, in particular, appeared embarrassed and uncomfortable.
Suspicious, border officials started asking questions, bringing in social workers and psychologists. "We saw something was not okay, but didn't know what. So we interviewed them separately," the psychologist who helped conduct the interview told CNN.
It turned out their story was a lie. The woman was a stranger who had promised the boy a lucrative job in Cyprus -- a chance to "be a man" and support his family living in Ukraine.