Russia: an online fortune-teller who escalated from removing a curse to threatening to place one

Proceedings

1. 2019-11-28 · conviction and sentence at first instance

   Zasviyazhsky District Court of Ulyanovsk, Ulyanovsk Oblast, Russia (Засвияжский районный суд г. Ульяновска). 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 conduct on 7 January 2019. The court found he registered on the VKontakte social network under an assumed nickname, entered into correspondence with a woman he did not know, satisfied himself of her trustfulness and proposed a divination rite. On his own account, recorded in the judgment, he then told her that things were bad for her, that a curse had been placed on her, and that rites costing 1,000 roubles were needed to remove it; he subsequently said he lacked the material to install protection and required further sums, raising the figure from 3,000 to 4,000 roubles on the basis that the curse was very strong. When she said she had no money left, he told her that the consequences would fall on her or her parents, and that unless she transferred a further 2,000 roubles he would place a curse on her — words he admitted saying in order to frighten her into paying more quickly. She made transfers totalling 10,800 roubles to his mobile number and Sberbank card over the course of that evening. He was sentenced to 420 hours of compulsory labour and ordered to pay 10,800 roubles to the victim in compensation.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• an account opened under a false nickname on a social network, and a correspondence in which the court found he satisfied himself of the victim's trustfulness before proposing a rite
• a sequence of escalating demands within a single evening, each justified by a claimed shortage of 'material' for the protection being installed
• the price raised mid-transaction — from 3,000 to 4,000 roubles — with the explanation that the curse was very strong
• a threat of consequences to the victim or her parents once she said she had no money left
• an explicit threat to PLACE a curse on her unless a further 2,000 roubles was sent, which he admitted was said to frighten her into paying faster
• payment by transfer to a mobile number and bank card in his own name, so the demands could continue remotely at any hour