Conviction Divination and fortune-telling services Petrozavodsk, Republic of Karelia, Russia · 2019

Karelia: seven victims over two years, more than a million roubles, and six years in a penal colony

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

a woman who presented herself as possessing healing powers by methods of non-traditional medicine, and offered removal of curses, sessions with incantations and cleansing from the evil eye

Organization

Petrozavodsk City Court, Republic of Karelia (Петрозаводский городской суд Республики Карелия)

Archive classification

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

The authority is a claimed healing power, offered as removal of curses and cleansing from the evil eye, and sustained across two years rather than a single encounter. What the judgment records in every count is the selection criterion: each victim was approached while her family was in serious difficulty, and the treatment was offered as the answer to that difficulty. That is what distinguishes this from a transactional deception — the victims were not buying a service whose value they could weigh, they were being told that the trouble already consuming their households had a cause that could be lifted. The sums rose as the relationship continued, moving from cash to jewellery to bed linen as each household's resources were exhausted.

Curse or witchcraft threat
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. 1-489/2019, Petrozavodsk City Court, Republic of Karelia — in accordance with CODEBOOK §10. The victims are unnamed and appear as masked designations. ON THE COURT'S REFERENCE TO ETHNICITY: the judgment states in each count that the defendant used her own ethnic background, which it identifies, as a factor lending credibility to her claimed healing powers. That is recorded here as a finding about the method this individual defendant employed — a claim she herself advanced about herself — and it is neither evidence nor a suggestion that any ethnic group is associated with this offence. The archive holds convictions for this pattern against defendants of many backgrounds across Russia and elsewhere, and the specific ethnic term used by the court is deliberately not reproduced, because repeating it serves no evidentiary purpose here and would invite exactly the inference the record disclaims. The 1,067,000 roubles is the total the court states across all seven counts; the especially-large-scale classification attaches to the count concerning two victims whose combined loss exceeded one million roubles. The six-year term is the aggregate under ч.3 ст.69 and is a real custodial sentence, the longest in the archive's Russian set for this practice. The judgment states an appellate route but records no appellate outcome, and none was found.

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2019-07-15 · conviction and sentence at first instance

Petrozavodsk City Court, Republic of Karelia, Russia (Петрозаводский городской суд Республики Карелия). The defendant, anonymised in the published judgment as ФИО8, was convicted of six offences of fraud causing significant damage to a citizen under ч.2 ст.159 of the Criminal Code and one offence of fraud on an especially large scale under ч.4 ст.159, committed between 15 September 2016 and 1 September 2018 in Petrozavodsk. The court found that she misled each victim as to her healing abilities by methods of non-traditional medicine and, having gained their trust, offered to remove curses and to conduct sessions of incantation and cleansing from the evil eye, taking money, jewellery and household goods. Recorded losses were 97,600 roubles and a further 9,450 roubles from one victim; 10,000; 35,150; 65,500; and 40,000 roubles from others; and, on the especially-large-scale count, 603,000 and 464,000 roubles from two further victims. The total taken was 1,067,000 roubles. She received two years on each of the six ч.2 counts and four years on the ч.4 count, aggregated by partial addition under ч.3 ст.69 to six years' deprivation of liberty in a correctional colony. Civil claims were brought by the victims in the amounts of their losses.

Documented coercion mechanisms

victims approached while living through severe family difficulties, which the court found in each count she exploited — «воспользовавшись стечением тяжелых жизненных обстоятельств, сложившихся в семье потерпевшей»
an offer of ongoing treatment rather than a single rite: sessions of incantation and «очищению от сглаза» extending over months
escalation from cash to jewellery to household goods as each victim's resources were exhausted
a claim to healing ability presented as inherent rather than learned, which the court found she asserted by reference to her own ethnic background

Cited record

Sources

court of record criminal judgment Приговор № 1-489/2019 от 15 июля 2019 г. по делу № 1-489/2019, Петрозаводский городской суд (Республика Карелия) — Уголовное.: The full text of the criminal judgment, read directly from the Russian judgments database sudact.ru. The court records that the defendant, over the period from 15 September 2016 to 1 September 2018, was «вводя граждан в заблуждение, относительно своих целительских способностей методами нетрадиционной медицины, путем обмана, завладела денежными средствами и имуществом граждан». In each count it records that she acted «воспользовавшись стечением тяжелых жизненных обстоятельств, сложившихся в семье потерпевшей», and that she «предложила ФИО7 свои услуги по снятию «порчи» и под предлогом помощи по снятию «порчи», проведению сеансов с заговорами, манипуляциями по «очищению от сглаза», на что ФИО7 ответила согласием». The itemised losses include «на общую сумму 97 600 рублей», «9450 рублей», «10 000 рублей», «35150 рублей», «65 500 рублей», «40000 рублей», and on the especially-large-scale count «603000 рублей» and «464000 рублей». The judgment states: «Всего ФИО8 умышленно путем обмана похитила чужого имущества на общую сумму 1067000 рублей, что является ущербом в особо крупном размере». The operative part convicts on six counts under ч.2 ст.159 and one under ч.4 ст.159, aggregating under ч.3 ст.69 to «6 (шесть) лет, с отбыванием наказания в исправительной колонии».

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/bSJyzinaQPWd/ 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; all seven counts, the per-victim losses, the stated total, the especially-large-scale classification and the six-year aggregate taken verbatim from the judgment; the court's reference to the defendant's ethnicity recorded as a finding about her stated method and the specific term deliberately withheld)

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