Conviction Divination and fortune-telling services Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia · 2017

Russia: fourteen women in eight months, and a court that describes the method as acting on the victim's will

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

a woman who approached strangers in the street, told each that a curse was upon her, and asked her to remove her gold for a divination and removal rite

Organization

Zheleznodorozhny District Court of Chita (Железнодорожный районный суд г. Читы)

Archive classification

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

This judgment states the archive's criterion in the language of the criminal law more directly than any other record it holds. The court does not describe a bargain the victim misjudged; it describes the defendant «воздействуя... на сознание и волю потерпевшей» — acting upon the victim's consciousness and will — and identifies the instrument precisely as «сведениями об имеющейся порче», the information that a curse was present. That is the whole of this archive's thesis in a Russian district court's own words: the claim about the curse is not a lie told to obtain a payment, it is the means by which the victim's will is overridden. Fourteen women in eight months accepted it, each asked to remove the gold she was wearing and hand it over for a rite.

Curse or witchcraft threat
Prosperity, divination, or curse-removal claim
Spiritual healing or treatment

Scope decision

The defendant is not named. Russian courts anonymise published judgments as a matter of course, and this record identifies the case by number and court — case no. 1-198/2017, Zheleznodorozhny District Court of Chita — in accordance with CODEBOOK §10. The fourteen complainants appear as initials only and are not named here. This is the LARGEST single-defendant series in the archive by count of victims. The figure of 515,295 roubles that can be computed from the fourteen per-victim totals is NOT stated as an aggregate in the judgment and is not asserted here as the court's finding; the individual sums are given as the court gives them. This is a second Chita record and a second Chita court, distinct from case no. 1-844/2017 before the Central District Court, which concerns a different defendant, date and victim. The four-year term is the aggregate under ст.70 following revocation of parole from a 2013 Irkutsk sentence whose subject matter is not stated in this judgment and about which no inference is drawn; three years six months is the aggregate for these fourteen offences. The judgment states an appellate route but records no appellate outcome, and none was found.

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2017-07-03 · conviction and sentence at first instance

Zheleznodorozhny District Court of Chita, Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia (Железнодорожный районный суд г. Читы). The defendant, anonymised in the published judgment as ФИО1, was convicted on FOURTEEN counts of fraud by deception and abuse of trust causing significant damage to a citizen under ч.2 ст.159 of the Criminal Code, committed against fourteen women between 16 July 2016 and 20 March 2017. On the first count the court found that she saw a woman she did not know in the street, formed the intent on sight, approached her under the pretext of removing a curse, told her falsely that a curse was upon her and, under the pretext of divination and its removal, asked her to take off her gold and hand it over for the rite — «воздействуя при этом на сознание и волю потерпевшей сведениями об имеющейся порче». The remaining thirteen counts follow the same pattern. The per-victim losses recorded are 36,000; 30,500; 48,000; 63,000; 11,000; 89,000; 12,190; 49,000; 13,000; 30,000; 28,000; 7,500; 59,605; and 38,500 roubles. Two years were imposed on each count and aggregated by partial addition under ч.2 ст.69 to three years six months. Her conditional early release from a sentence of the Sverdlovsky District Court of Irkutsk of 18 January 2013 was revoked under п.«б» ч.7 ст.79, and by partial addition of the unserved part under ст.70 a final term of four years in a general-regime correctional colony was imposed.

Documented coercion mechanisms

the court's own formulation of the mechanism: she acted «воздействуя при этом на сознание и волю потерпевшей сведениями об имеющейся порче» — working upon the victim's consciousness and will by means of the information that a curse was present
the approach made in the street to women she did not know, the intent forming on sight
the victim asked to take off the gold she was wearing and hand it over «для совершения обряда» — for the performance of the rite
the same sequence repeated against fourteen women across eight months, from July 2016 to March 2017
the offending committed while on parole from an earlier sentence

Cited record

Sources

court of record criminal judgment Приговор № 1-198/2017 от 3 июля 2017 г. по делу № 1-198/2017, Железнодорожный районный суд г. Читы (Забайкальский край) — Уголовное.: The full text of the criminal judgment, read directly from the Russian judgments database sudact.ru. On the first count the court records that the defendant «увидела ранее незнакомую ей К. Е.С., и по внезапно возникшему корыстному умыслу решила путем обмана и злоупотребления доверием совершить хищение ювелирных изделий», that she approached «под предлогом снятия порчи», «путем обмана сообщила потерпевшей заведомо недостоверные сведения, тем самым ввела К. Е.С. в заблуждение о наличии у последней порчи и под предлогом гадания и снятии порчи, предложила К. Е.С. снять с себя золотые изделия и передать ей для совершения обряда, тем самым добиваясь от последней добровольной передачи золотых изделий, воздействуя при этом на сознание и волю потерпевшей сведениями об имеющейся порче». The judgment records fourteen counts «по март 2017 года совершив 14 эпизодов мошенничества, с причинением каждой из потерпевших значительного ущерба; находясь на свободе» on parole. Per-victim totals recorded are «на общую сумму» 36000, 30500, 48000, 63000, 11000, 89000, 12190, 49000, 13000, 30000, 28000, 7500, 59605 and 38500 roubles. The operative part imposes two years on each of the fourteen counts, aggregates under ч.2 ст.69 to «3 (три) года 6 (шесть) месяцев», revokes conditional early release under п.«б» ч.7 ст.79 from the Irkutsk judgment of 18 January 2013, and by ст.70 imposes «4 (четыре) года лишения свободы... с отбыванием наказания в исправительной колонии общего режима».

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/VHVBdvA1Vs10/ 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, page 8; full judgment read via the browser pane; all fourteen counts and their per-victim totals, the court's «сознание и волю» formulation, the parole revocation and the four-year aggregate taken verbatim; the computed 515,295-rouble sum identified as computed rather than found by the court)

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