Russia: jewellery tied into a handkerchief 'as a condition of removing the curse', shown intact, then swapped

Proceedings

1. 2019-09-16 · conviction and sentence at first instance

   Tosno City Court, Leningrad Oblast, Russia (Тосненский городской суд Ленинградской области). The defendant, anonymised through most of the published judgment as ФИО2, was convicted of fraud causing significant damage to a citizen under ч.2 ст.159 of the Criminal Code. The court found that within a forty-minute period she approached the victim in the street and, under the pretext of removing a curse, walked with her to a sports ground, where she asked her to take off the jewellery she was wearing for the rite: a yellow gold ring with diamonds worth 15,000 roubles, a white gold ring with diamonds worth 12,000 roubles, a yellow gold bracelet worth 10,000 roubles and yellow gold earrings with cubic zirconia worth 9,000 roubles, 46,000 roubles in total. She placed the items in a handkerchief and tied it in a knot as a stated condition of removing the curse, then handed the handkerchief to the victim; at a nearby entrance she took it back, untied it so the victim could satisfy herself the jewellery was inside, and tied it again. She was sentenced to two years' deprivation of liberty with an additional one year's restriction of liberty, the latter carrying a curfew between 22:00 and 06:00, a prohibition on changing residence and monthly reporting.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• the victim led from the street to a sports ground, away from other people, as part of the proposed rite
• the victim asked to remove the jewellery she was wearing so that the rite could be performed on it
• the items tied into a knotted handkerchief «в качестве условия «снятия порчи»» — as a stated condition of the removal — and handed back to the victim to hold
• the knot untied in front of the victim so she could confirm the jewellery was still inside, then retied, which used her own verification to establish trust before the substitution