Saint Petersburg: gold and cash swapped for novelty banknotes and three coins during a twenty-minute street encounter

Proceedings

1. 2019-04-01 · conviction and sentence at first instance

   Pushkinsky District Court of Saint Petersburg, Russia (Пушкинский районный суд города Санкт-Петербурга). The defendant, anonymised in the published judgment as ФИО1, was convicted of fraud causing significant damage to a citizen under ч.2 ст.159 of the Criminal Code for an offence committed on 17 September 2018 between 14:20 and 14:40 outside a residential building in Shushary, Pushkinsky District. The court found that under the pretext of removing a curse she misled the victim into handing over her jewellery and money — a gold wedding ring worth 15,000 roubles, a gold ring set with three diamonds worth 10,000 roubles, a gold chain worth 15,000 roubles and 2,500 roubles in cash — and that she substituted for them novelty 'Bank of Jokes' banknotes and three coins, causing a loss of 42,500 roubles. She was sentenced to one year's deprivation of liberty, suspended under ст.73 with a three-year probationary period and obligations to register with the penal inspectorate within ten days, to report monthly and not to change her residence or registration without notice.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• a street approach outside a residential building, the whole offence occupying about twenty minutes
• the removal of a curse used as the basis for surrendering both jewellery and cash together
• the items replaced with «билеты банка приколов» — novelty 'Bank of Jokes' banknotes — together with three coins, so that the bundle returned to the victim had the weight and feel of the original