Bashkortostan: a knock at the door, valuables asked for 'on condition of return', and 17,088 roubles gone

Proceedings

1. 2019-02-20 · conviction and sentence at first instance

   Ishimbay City Court, Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia (Ишимбайский городской суд Республики Башкортостан). The defendant, anonymised in the published judgment as ФИО2, was convicted of fraud causing significant damage to a citizen under ч.2 ст.159 of the Criminal Code for an offence committed on 21 October 2018 at about 13:00. The court found that she knocked at a flat door in the first entrance of a residential building and, when the occupant opened it, formed the intention to take her money and property by deception; that under the pretext of removing a curse she asked for the victim's money and valuables on the condition that they would be returned, which she had no intention of doing from the outset; and that seeing the victim had believed her, she asked for them as being needed for the curse-removal rite. The victim handed over 5,200 roubles in cash, a 585-standard gold chain weighing 4.35g worth 6,960 roubles, a 583-standard gold cross weighing 1.18g worth 1,888 roubles and two 585-standard gold earrings weighing 1.90g together worth 3,040 roubles — 17,088 roubles in total — after which the defendant left the flat. The case was heard in the special procedure, the defendant admitting the charge in full. She was sentenced to one year six months' deprivation of liberty, suspended under ст.73 with an eighteen-month probationary period and obligations to report monthly and not to change residence without notice.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• a cold approach at the victim's own front door, the decision to defraud formed on the doorstep when it opened
• the removal of a curse used as the basis for the request
• the money and gold asked for «с условием их дальнейшего возвращения» — on the express condition that they would be given back — which the court found she never intended to honour
• the valuables said to be needed «якобы для совершения обряда по снятию порчи», so that surrendering them read as lending rather than paying