Material and electronic-digital traces as an element of the forensic characteristics of frauds committed in the way "Your relative got into trouble"

Revenko Natal'ya Ivanovna PhD in Law Associate Professor; Department of Criminal Procedure and Criminalistics; Omsk State University named after F.M. Dostoevsky 644099, Russia, Omsk region, Omsk, Krasina str., 2, sq. 40 revenko.ni@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Recently, cases of fraud against the elderly in the way "Your relative is in trouble" have become more frequent throughout the country. Despite the fact that law enforcement agencies are actively engaged in information activities related to explaining the mechanisms of fraud and the behavior of citizens in these cases, the level of this type of crime is not decreasing. Fraudsters, using old, proven schemes, introduce new techniques into them that allow them to take possession of other people's property ^{[1, p. 94]}. In modern conditions, scammers, implementing the "Your relative is in trouble" method, call elderly victims on a landline phone, knowing that they do not answer calls coming to a cell phone from unfamiliar numbers. Also, due to the fact that elderly people, as a rule, do not use a mobile bank and cannot transfer money to the account specified by the criminal, fraudsters began to involve a courier in their criminal group, to whom the victims transfer money allegedly to help their close relative or acquaintance. The fraudulent courier transfers the money received from the victims to the account indicated to him, keeping 5-10% for himself.

As a rule, this type of fraud is committed by a criminal group using information technology. In a short period of time, they manage to deceive a large number of victims living in different cities. So, in Tomsk, S. was detained, who from May to June 2023, as part of a criminal group, on the instructions of curators, came to specific addresses in Tomsk and Novosibirsk and took money from the deceived victims. During this period of time, 14 crimes were committed [Verdict of the Kirovsky District Court of Tomsk dated 12/29/2023 in case no. 1-104/2023 // Judicial and regulatory acts of the Russian Federation. – URL: https://sudact.ru/regular/doc/c08euDEapBN0 /, The verdict of the Pervomaisky District Court of the Novosibirsk region dated 06.06.2023 in case no. 1-343/2023// Pervomaisky district Court of Novosibirsk. – URL: https://pervomaisky--nsk.sudrf.ru/modules.php?name=sud_delo].

As practice shows, only the courier is brought to criminal responsibility, in relation to the organizers and perpetrators of fraud, whose identity is not established, criminal cases are separated into separate proceedings. Difficulties in identifying the organizers and perpetrators of crimes are associated with their use of information technology, which currently does not allow them to establish their location.

Despite the use of modern technologies by criminals in committing this type of fraud, the investigator's knowledge of the mechanism of trace formation in cases of this category will help to establish its mechanism, prove the event and the guilt of the persons involved in it. The mechanism of trace formation in criminology is traditionally recognized as one of the elements of the criminalistic characteristics of a crime ^{[2, p. 43]}. Currently, in cases of this category in criminology, there are three groups of traces: ideal, material and electronic-digital.

The investigator discovers and fixes the ideal traces displayed in the minds of individuals by conducting interrogations of victims, witnesses, suspects, accused, experts, specialists. During interrogations, the investigator, in accordance with Part 1 of Article 74 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, receives such type of evidence as testimony. Ideal traces in cases of this type of fraud at the initial stage of the investigation are of great importance for establishing the mechanism of committing a crime and detaining fraudsters ^{[3, p. 45]}.

Any changes in the material world that occur during the commission of a crime can be attributed to material traces.

There is no consensus in the legal literature on the name of the third group of footprints, in particular E. A. Pidusov, V. A. Mashlyakevich ^[4], designate them as electronic digital footprints. The authors believe that this group includes "... information stored in the mobile phones of the victim, the fraudster and (or) the trusted person of the criminal; recordings from surveillance cameras" ^{[5, p. 86]}.

The works of G. M. Selyuzhitskaya ^[6], I. V. Suvorova ^[7], A.V. Sycheva ^[8] consider certain issues related to the methodology of investigation of remote frauds, however, they do not focus on the criminalistic characteristics of material and electronic digital traces formed during the commission of the considered type of fraud.

Due to the fact that the victim communicated with the scammers by phone while at home and transferred money to the fraudster courier there, the situation in which the crime occurred acts as material traces. To capture the crime scene, an investigative action is carried out to inspect the scene of the incident, during which the actions of the investigator should be aimed at fixing the situation, detecting and removing traces that allow identifying the fraudulent courier. These can be a variety of display marks, such as finger marks, shoe marks, as well as microparticles and fat traces.

An analysis of the practice of investigating this category of cases showed that the inspection of the scene of the incident – the victim's apartment – was carried out in all the studied cases, however, in most cases the investigator recorded only the surrounding environment, no traces were found and seized. G. M. Hovsepyan, D. V. Kuzmenko, assessing the inspection of the scene of the incident in cases of this category, characterize it as tactically superficial and inconclusive ^{[9, p. 100]}. Despite this characteristic, investigations of a series of frauds in Tomsk can be cited as a positive example. Of the eight episodes in which S. was brought to criminal responsibility for committing fraud as part of a group against elderly victims, two of them, during an inspection of the scene, finger marks were removed on the door handle from the outside of the apartment door and on the entrance door, which, according to the conclusion of a fingerprint examination, belonged to S. [Verdict Kirovsky District Court of Tomsk dated 12/29/2023 in case No. 1-104/2023].

A. V. Sycheva, characterizing the tactical techniques of examining the scene of the incident, notes that in cases of this category "it is advisable to involve the victim in conducting an investigative action, since he can explain in detail the circumstances of the event" ^{[10, p. 315]}. As practice shows, the investigator conducts an inspection of the scene of the incident – the apartment and the landing – with the participation of the victim, who during the inspection gives explanations about the location of the fraudulent courier and his behavior at the time of transferring money to him.

During this inspection, the investigator, as a rule, withdraws a statement written by the victim at the dictation of fraudsters. During communication, fraudsters, in order to convince the victim of the need to transfer money to help loved ones, inform him of the need to write a statement in triplicate addressed to the head of the Department of Internal Affairs. In the statement, the victim asks not to initiate criminal proceedings against his relatives in connection with reconciliation with the victim and compensation for damage to him, indicating a specific amount. The victim puts two copies of the statement in a bag with money and passes it to the courier.

In our opinion, writing this statement to the victims is also necessary for fraudsters so that they can keep the victim in touch while the courier gets to his place of residence. Before the courier arrives, the fraudster alternately calls the victim on a landline phone, then on a cell phone, whose number he learns from him. The statement seized during the inspection of the scene of the incident is further examined by the investigator separately, a protocol of inspection of documents is drawn up and attached as material evidence.

The facts of finding a fraudulent courier in the victim's apartment and transferring money to him are also confirmed by video surveillance cameras seized either from residents of the house who own the video camera, or from representatives of a management company or a real estate owners association. In practice, there are examples when video cameras are not installed in the house, and the investigator, having found out from the taxi driver that the fraudulent courier entered the store on his way to or from the crime scene, seizes the video from the store administration.

Methods of inspection of the seized video are of interest. When studying the materials of criminal cases, two ways of examining the video were revealed. In the first method, the investigator describes what he sees on the video recording related to the event under investigation. For example: "On 07/06/2023, at 20:31 minutes 54 seconds, a girl walks towards the entrance 4 at the address Smirnov, 2, who leaves the entrance at 20:36 minutes 46 seconds, while holding a plastic bag in her left hand [Verdict of the Pervomaisky District Court of the Novosibirsk Region from 06.06.2023 in case No. 1-343/2023]. In the second method, the investigator examines the video together with the suspect courier, who during the inspection confirms that he is depicted on the video and gives an explanation of why he is in this place. For example: "05/20/2022 the video was examined with the participation of suspect S. and her defender. During the inspection, suspect S. explained that on the video she enters the entrance of a house in Tomsk to take money from an elderly woman, and then leaves the entrance of the house with the stolen funds" [Verdict of the Kirovsky District Court of Tomsk dated 12/29/2023 in case No. 1-104/2023].

The digital traces also include a video recording showing a fraudulent courier transferring stolen money using an ATM. During the inspection of this video, the suspect is also present, who confirms that he is depicted on the video.

As can be seen from the analysis of the protocols of the inspection of the scene and inspections of objects and documents, the investigator, when compiling them, records the testimony of suspects and victims taking part in these investigative actions. In our opinion, the testimony of the persons participating in the examination should be reflected in the appropriate interrogation protocol, which is recommended to be conducted after the examination. This conclusion follows from the essence of the inspection as an investigative action and the analysis of the provisions of Article 180 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, according to which only the actions of the investigator and everything found are recorded in the protocol of inspection, and in the protocol of interrogation in accordance with Article 190 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, the testimony of the interrogated persons is recorded.

A certain set of trace information is contained in cell phones belonging to both the victim and the suspected courier. S. A. Yanin believes that the results of the inspection of objects (namely cellular communications), as a rule, are extremely important for exposing the criminal and securing evidence of his guilt ^{[11, p. 144]}.

In most cases, fraudulent couriers take a conflict-free position during the investigation and inform the investigator of information that allows him to detect a set of electronic and digital traces in the phone confirming the courier's communication with the organizers of the crime for each episode of criminal activity. So, in the Yandex-Maps application, you can record the suspect's requests about the location of: hotels in cities where he arrived at the direction of curators; ATMs through which he transferred the stolen money, and the route to them.

By examining the e-mail, you can find saved incoming letters confirming the facts of purchasing a train ticket to the settlements where the crimes were committed and booking hotels there. The application for calling a taxi may contain information about calling a taxi to the place of residence of the victims or SMS messages about the time, route and data of the car and driver.

Also, when examining the cell phone of a fraudulent courier, you can find screenshots confirming the transfer of money to the organizers of the fraud, correspondence with them, a video recording in which he, showing his passport, says that he is ready to commit crimes. This video is made at the direction of the organizers during the period of the courier's involvement in the criminal group and is sent to them.

Thus, when committing fraud in the "Your relative is in trouble" way, a certain set of traces remains. As the analysis of criminal cases on this type of fraud has shown, a small number of material traces remain. Among them are those that allow you to identify the fraudster courier, in particular, the traces left by the fraudster in the apartment or on the landing at the place of residence of the victim at the time of the transfer of money. These may be finger marks, shoe marks, microparticles, and grease marks. Other material traces confirming the event of the crime are also important: the situation of the place where it was committed; the victim's statement addressed to the head of the Department of Internal Affairs; details of the victim's telephone connections, etc.

Due to the fact that the totality of the traces formed depends on the method of committing a crime, electronic digital traces are also distinguished in this category of criminal cases, which can be detected when examining the phone of a fraudster courier, video recordings from CCTV cameras at the victim's place of residence and the location of the ATM.

The investigator's knowledge of the entire list of possible material and electronic digital traces, as well as the mechanism of their formation for this type of fraud, is an important condition for establishing and proving the event of a crime and the guilt of the perpetrators.