Conviction Divination and fortune-telling services Rostov-on-Don, Rostov Oblast, Russia · 2019

Russia: 'she cured my mother and took no money' — a vouching stranger, and 243,000 roubles swapped in a bag

Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

a woman convicted of acting in prior conspiracy, whose assigned role was to vouch for the other as a healer who had cured her own mother without charge, a second woman, who made the initial approach and claimed she could remove the curse, and against whom the prosecution was terminated on reconciliation with the victim

Organization

Sovetsky District Court of Rostov-on-Don (Советский районный суд г. Ростова-на-Дону)

Archive classification

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

The authority is the claimed power to remove a curse, and this judgment isolates the function of the corroborator with unusual clarity. The convicted defendant did not herself claim the power; her role was to make the other woman's claim credible, and the specific form of her vouching was designed to defeat the objection a victim would most naturally raise — that a healer soliciting money in the street wants money. Saying the woman had cured her mother and taken nothing for it converted a stranger's approach into a recommendation. The removal rite then supplied the reason the victim's savings had to be produced and handed over, and the substitution ensured she would not test the claim until it was too late.

Curse or witchcraft threat
Spiritual healing or treatment

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. 1-46/2018, also numbered 1-486/2017 and 1-9/2019, UID 61RS0008-01-2017-000314-37, Sovetsky District Court of Rostov-on-Don — in accordance with CODEBOOK §10. The victim appears as initials only and is not named. The second participant was not convicted: the prosecution against her was terminated on reconciliation with the victim, and this record makes no finding about her conduct; her actions are described only because the court describes them in establishing the convicted defendant's part. It follows that the person who made the curse claim itself was not adjudicated, and the conviction recorded here is of the participant who corroborated it. The offence dates are redacted in the published text as ДД.ММ.ГГГГ; the year is taken from the judgment date. The four-year term is the aggregate under ч.5 ст.69 with an earlier judgment of the Kuzminsky District Court, whose subject matter is not stated here; the two years is what was imposed for this offence. The case was heard in the special procedure on an admission, so the facts are those accepted rather than found after contested evidence. The judgment states an appellate route but records no appellate outcome, and none was found.

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2019-08-29 · conviction and sentence at first instance

Sovetsky District Court of Rostov-on-Don, Rostov Oblast, Russia (Советский районный суд г. Ростова-на-Дону). 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, committed by a group acting in prior conspiracy according to roles agreed in advance. The court found that a second woman approached the victim in the street and told her a curse was upon her which she could remove; that the defendant then joined them and misled the victim by telling her that the second woman had cured her own mother and had taken no money for doing so; and that, having moved to another address, the second woman asked the victim under the pretext of removing the curse to wrap her money in a bag and place it in her handbag. The victim handed over 243,000 roubles, which the second woman put in her bag before substituting an identical bag containing no money and returning it; the victim discovered the loss on reaching home at about 17:00. The prosecution of the second woman was terminated on reconciliation with the victim, and no finding is made against her. The defendant received two years' deprivation of liberty, aggregated under ч.5 ст.69 with a sentence of the Kuzminsky District Court to a final term of four years in a general-regime correctional colony. The court found recidivism as an aggravating circumstance by reference to a judgment of the Timiryazevsky District Court. The case was heard in the special procedure and no civil claim was brought.

Documented coercion mechanisms

roles distributed in advance between two participants before the approach
an unsolicited street diagnosis followed within moments by a second stranger arriving to corroborate it
the corroboration framed to defeat suspicion of a financial motive — the convicted defendant told the victim the other had cured her mother «при этом не взяв денежных средств», having taken no money for it
the removal of the curse defined so that the victim's own money had to be present and handed over, wrapped in a bag and placed in the other woman's handbag
the bag substituted for an identical empty one and returned to the victim, so that she left believing she still held her money and discovered the loss only on reaching home

Cited record

Sources

court of record criminal judgment Приговор № 1-46/2018 1-486/2017 1-9/2019 от 29 августа 2019 г. по делу № 1-46/2018, Советский районный суд г. Ростова-на-Дону (Ростовская область) — Уголовное. УИД 61RS0008-01-2017-000314-37.: The full text of the criminal judgment, read directly from the Russian judgments database sudact.ru. The court records that the second woman «подошла к Ф.Л.И. и сообщила последней, что на ней порча, которую К.Е.С. может снять», after which «к ним подошла ФИО1 и ввела Ф.Л.И. в заблуждение, сообщив последней, что К.Е.С. вылечила ее маму, при этом не взяв денежных средств». Having moved to another address, the second woman «под предлогом снятия порчи попросила Ф.Л.И. положить свои денежные средства к ней в сумку, предварительно завернув их в пакет», and on receiving 243,000 roubles «положила в свою сумку и подменила пакет с денежными средствами Ф.Л.И. на идентичный без денежных средств, который вернула Ф.Л.И.». The victim «вернулась к себе домой, где примерно в 17 часов 00 минут... обнаружила, что денежные средства в сумме 243 000 рублей в переданном ей К.Е.С. пакете отсутствуют». The judgment repeatedly notes that the second woman is a person «уголовное преследование в отношении которой прекращено в связи с примирением сторон». The operative part convicts under ч.2 ст.159 and aggregates under ч.5 ст.69 to «04 (четыре) года 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/AvW3jOfkrPQS/ 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 role division, the vouching claim and its wording, the bag substitution, the sum, the aggregation under ч.5 ст.69 and the termination of the co-participant's prosecution on reconciliation taken verbatim from the judgment)

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