Conviction Divination and fortune-telling services Chelyabinsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia · 2017

Russia: a two-woman crew whose plan was to win the trust of elderly people and block their view

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

a woman convicted of acting in prior conspiracy, whose assigned role was to hold the householder's attention and block her line of sight, a second woman, convicted with her, whose assigned role was to establish where the money was kept under a curse-removal pretext and then search the flat

Organization

Metallurgichesky District Court of Chelyabinsk (Металлургический районный суд г. Челябинска)

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The authority is the claimed capacity to remove a curse, and this judgment shows it used as an instrument of reconnaissance rather than of extraction. Nothing was handed over. The pretext's function, as the court describes it, was to get the victim to disclose where her money was kept — «выяснила местонахождение денежных средств» — after which she was led into another room and the flat searched. What the spiritual claim bought was the one piece of information a stranger in a home could not otherwise obtain, and a reason for the householder to walk away from it. The plan was aimed at elderly people as a class before any particular victim was chosen.

Curse or witchcraft threat

Scope decision

Neither woman is named. Russian courts anonymise published judgments as a matter of course, and this record identifies the case by number and court — case no. 1-418/2018, Metallurgichesky District Court of Chelyabinsk — in accordance with CODEBOOK §10. The victims appear as initials only and are not named. The judgment's anonymisation is internally inconsistent, referring at one point to a conspiracy with ФИО4 where ФИО2 is meant; no inference is drawn from that. Both participants were convicted in these proceedings, and the record is classified as a conviction of a spiritual authority on that basis; the curse pretext was employed by the co-defendant while this defendant's assigned role was to obstruct the victim's view, and both acted under the same agreed plan. The offences are charged as theft with unlawful entry, not fraud, because the court found the property was taken rather than handed over. The record is dated to the year of the offences, 2017, rather than the judgment date of 21 November 2018. The three-year term is the aggregate under ч.3 ст.69 and is suspended: it is not a period in custody. The judgment states an appellate route but records no appellate outcome, and none was found.

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2018-11-21 · conviction and sentence at first instance

Metallurgichesky District Court of Chelyabinsk, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia (Металлургический районный суд г. Челябинска). The defendant, anonymised in the published judgment as ФИО1, was convicted on two counts of theft by a group acting in prior conspiracy, causing significant damage to a citizen, with unlawful entry into a dwelling, under п.«а» ч.3 ст.158 of the Criminal Code, for offences committed between 1 December and 27 December 2017. The court found that she and a woman she already knew agreed in advance to win the trust of elderly people on various pretexts, to enter their homes on an invented basis, and to divide roles so that she would hold the occupants' attention and obstruct their view while the other left the room on a pretext and searched for money. In the count concerning one victim the court found the co-defendant, under an invented pretext of removing a curse, established where that victim's money was kept and then took her into the kitchen while the search was carried out. The recorded losses were 97,000 roubles from one victim and 150,000 roubles from the other. She received two years on each count, aggregated by partial addition under ч.3 ст.69 to three years' deprivation of liberty, suspended under ст.73 with a three-year probationary period. Civil claims of 97,000 and 150,000 roubles were brought against both defendants.

Documented coercion mechanisms

a standing plan directed at a class of victim — the court found the pair agreed to win the trust of «пожилых людей», elderly people, and enter their homes on invented pretexts
roles fixed in advance: one to distract the occupant and obstruct her view, the other to leave the room on a pretext and search
the curse-removal pretext used specifically to establish the location of the money — «под надуманным предлогом снятия порчи, выяснила местонахождение денежных средств»
the victim then led to another room, so that the search took place out of her sight

Cited record

Sources

court of record criminal judgment Приговор № 1-418/2018 от 21 ноября 2018 г. по делу № 1-418/2018, Металлургический районный суд г. Челябинска (Челябинская область) — Уголовное.: The full text of the criminal judgment, read directly from the Russian judgments database sudact.ru. The court records that the pair agreed «заранее распределив роли, а именно ФИО1 и ФИО2 должны были под различными предлогами входить в доверие к пожилым людям, после чего под надуманным предлогом незаконно проникать в жилище последних», with one «должна была отвлекать внимание жильцов квартиры, загораживать обзор пожилым людям» and the other «под надуманным предлогом уйти с поле зрения владельца квартиры и, обыскав квартиру, похитить денежные средства, которыми совместно распоряжаться». In the second count it records that the co-defendant «под надуманным предлогом снятия порчи, выяснила местонахождение денежных средств, принадлежащих» the victim, and then «сопроводила последнюю в кухню указанной квартир[ы]». The recorded losses are «значительный материальный ущерб на общую сумму 97 000 рублей» and «на общую сумму 150 000 рублей». The operative part convicts on two counts under п.«а» ч.3 ст.158, aggregates to three years under ч.3 ст.69 and suspends under ст.73.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://sudact.ru/regular/doc/tpwGSorqfrdp/ Corpus classification: court-of-record; evidentiary role: criminal-judgment.
Retrieval: 2026-07-29 · Preserved; Bound by Fear research cycle 2026-07-29 (Russian-language sweep; full judgment read via the browser pane; the standing plan targeting elderly people, the division of roles, the curse pretext used to locate the money, both losses, the aggregation under ч.3 ст.69 and the suspension taken verbatim from the judgment; both participants confirmed convicted in these proceedings)

Named in this record? Request a correction, report a changed disposition, or submit a response.

Related record

Related cases · Divination and fortune-telling services

Browse all 80 Divination and fortune-telling services records

← Explore all cases