Russia: 5,223,157 roubles taken from a dozen people whose jewellery and cash were to be 'charmed'

Proceedings

1. 2019-05-07 · conviction and sentence at first instance

   Promyshlenny District Court of Stavropol, Stavropol Krai, Russia (Промышленный районный суд г. Ставрополя). The defendant, anonymised in the published judgment as ФИО1, was convicted of fraud on an especially large scale under ч.4 ст.159 of the Criminal Code. The court found a single continuing criminal intent directed at obtaining property by deception «под предлогом оказания услуг по снятию порчи и решения личных проблем граждан, путем заговора ювелирных изделий и денежных средств» — under the pretext of providing services removing curses and resolving personal problems by pronouncing charms over jewellery and money. In the first count recorded, she approached a victim in the entrance hall of a residential building, offered help with her personal problems by charming her jewellery and cash, and required that these be handed over at the moment of the removal with no right of further disposal by the owner. The judgment records more than a dozen victims by initials, with individual losses including 331,000, 80,000, 17,000 and 15,300 roubles. The court held the especially-large-scale element proved, the total value of property and money taken amounting to 5,223,157 roubles. In mitigation it recorded that she had no previous convictions, had voluntarily surrendered and actively assisted the investigation and the tracing of the property, had two young children and a third minor child dependent on her, was head of a peasant farm enterprise, was positively characterised where she lived and had undergone surgery while in pre-trial detention. She was sentenced to two years' deprivation of liberty in a general-regime correctional colony, with time in custody counted at one day for one and a half. Civil claims were brought by victims in amounts redacted from the published text.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• a single continuing scheme rather than isolated encounters, the court finding one «единый преступный умысел» running across the whole period
• the rite defined as a charm pronounced over the victims' own jewellery and cash, so that the property had to be surrendered to be treated
• a stated condition that the property be handed over «без права на их дальнейшее распоряжение» — with no right of further disposal by the owner — for the duration of the removal
• help with personal problems offered alongside the curse removal, so that the approach met people already looking for a remedy