Enforcement aspects related to qualification of fraudulent activities

Theft, committed in a fraudulent manner, is one of the most common types of crimes. Pre-planned actions using forged documents and information, by deceit and abuse of the victim’s trust, allowing to obtain the ability to dispose of other people's property characterize most of the crimes of this category. In this case, the basis of the charge of committing fraudulent acts can only be based on fully proven direct intent to commit unlawful actions that arose even before the occurrence of property relations. A survey of employees, working with economic crimes, showed that the investigation of fraudulent acts is one of the most time-consuming and difficult to prove processes. At the same time, one of the main problems when considering such acts is that from the moment a citizen's appeal is received, an employee of the internal affairs bodies is obliged to consider it as soon as practicable and make decisions on initiating or refusing to institute criminal proceedings. The difficulty lies in the fact that at this stage the employee is not endowed with the necessary range of criminal procedural powers, which he can be granted with only after the initiation of a criminal case. Also often such appeals are considered by inexperienced employees, including those whose official duties are not connected with the implementation of the preliminary investigation. For this reason, the most common decision on such appeals of citizens is the refusal to initiate criminal proceedings and recommendations on applying to the court in civil procedure. The article notes some problematic positions in the qualifications and investigation of fraud, and also suggests priority ways to resolve it, which are possible without making changes to the regulatory framework.

fraud, direct intent, theft, qualification, preliminary investigation