Criminal Defence Lawyer

Courts usually are not on the side of the accused. Let’s take for example the sentences of Krasnodar courts.

The issue of releasing the accused from criminal liability due to the absence of a crime due to the fact that the act committed was causing harm to the attacker in a state of necessary defense did not occur very often, never ended in success for the defendant, and all the criminal cases listed below have one thing in common: the violence occurred in conditions where everyone — the victim, the accused, and eyewitnesses — were in a state of alcoholic intoxication, which Krasnodar courts often recognize as an aggravating circumstance in such cases.

Sovetsky District Court of Krasnodar

The Sovetsky District Court of Krasnodar has never accepted statements from the defense regarding the application of the provisions of Article 37 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. In this case, the court often notes that either the fact of the attack committed by the victim has not been proven (No. 1−438/2018), or the defendant’s response actions clearly did not correspond to the nature and danger of the attack (No. 1−286/2015, No. 1−495/2016). And if any injuries were recorded on the defendant as a result of the unlawful behavior of the victim, the court points to the defendant’s attempt to use a method of mitigating criminal liability (although it recognizes the unlawfulness and immorality of the victim’s behavior — No. 1−353/2019). At the same time, the Sovetsky District Court of Krasnodar has a practice of reclassifying murder (Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) to murder committed in excess of the limits of necessary defense (Article 108 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) with the imposition of a punishment in the form of correctional labor — No. 1−73/2016, No. 1−326/2015. There is also a practice of reclassifying intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm committed with the use of a weapon or objects used as a weapon (paragraph "z", part 2 of Article 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) to intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm committed in excess of the limits of necessary defense (Part 1 of Article 114 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), with the imposition of a punishment in the form of 6 months of imprisonment — No. 1−17/2015 .

There is not much practice on necessary defense in the Oktyabrsky, Pervomaysky and Leninsky district courts.

Oktyabrsky District Court of Krasnodar — in this Krasnodar court we find a case of the court’s critical attitude to the presence of an element of necessary defense due to the absence of a proven attack by the victim (No. 1−317/2017)

Pervomaysky District Court of Krasnodar — here we also see a case in which no evidence of the unlawful behavior and attack of the victim was presented, and, therefore, the court notes the absence of a state of necessary defense due to the absence of an attack (No. 1−21/2016).

Leninsky District Court of Krasnodar — the defense failed to prove the fact that the victim posed in any way a real threat to the life and health of the defendant or expressed any threats to him, the implementation of which, given the specific situation, could be feared (No. 1−566/2019).

Prikubansky District Court of Krasnodar

The factor of unproven presence in the actions of the victim of a socially dangerous encroachment on the life and health of the defendant or the existence of a real threat of such an encroachment is also traced in the decisions of this court — No. 1−1016/2014, No. 1−712/19 (the victim threw the defendant to the ground after the latter began to take a knife out of his clothes). In case No. 1−39/15, the argument against the argument that harm was caused in a state of necessary defense was the number of knife blows inflicted, as well as the method of their infliction — 6 blows to the back. In case No. 1−35/2015, the court predictably refused to recognize the defendant’s actions as committed in a state of necessary defense, because the attack ended, and after that the defendant went for a knife and began to purposefully look for the victim — such actions cannot be recognized as committed in a state of necessary defense.

In the case under Art. 108 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation No. 1−124/14 (which was originally under Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and the defense had to go all the way to the Supreme Court to have the act reclassified — great work by a criminal defense attorney, it must be admitted) presents a plot straight out of a movie: the victim came to the defendant’s home and, loudly and swearing, demanded the return of the money he had invested. The troublemaker smashed the computer monitor and began threatening to kill the woman and physically assault her young children (they were in the home at the time). Fearing for her life and the lives of her three children, the defendant went down the stairs to the basement and sat down on the right side of the corridor. The victim followed her and pulled a pistol out of his belt. Seeing this, the defendant became frightened and hit the man hard on the right hand in which he was holding the weapon. She managed to knock it out, after which the girl picked up the gun and shot the victim in the chest area, killing him on the spot. Despite all the horror of such a situation, the court makes the following conclusion: "… it should be recognized that in the current situation, the defendant was in a state of necessary defense, but acted in excess of its limits, shooting at the victim with a pistol, which is clearly unjustified, although she was in a closed room, but could not aim at vital organs, thereby depriving the victim of the opportunity to move, and run out of the basement."

In case No. 1−916/2019 court refused to reclassify from Part 3 of Article 30 of Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation to Article 114 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, since according to the evidence examined, the defendant inflicted multiple blows to the vital organs of the victim. The court also noted the difference between the testimony of the accused immediately after turning himself in and later testimony, in which the position on the presence of a state of necessary defense had already appeared. The argument about the absence of a state of necessary defense due to the infliction of multiple knife blows on the victim is also found in case No. 1−534/2018.

In case No. 1−64/2019 the Prikubansky District Court of the city of Krasnodar did not heed the arguments of the defense about the need to qualify the act as murder committed in excess of the limits of necessary defense — the judge proceeded from the following: the infliction of bodily harm was preceded by a conflict between the accused and the victim. The victim was the initiator of the crime, and subsequently the defendant inflicted serious bodily harm on him. According to the court, the defendant certainly had the intent to cause bodily harm, which he himself did not deny, while stating that the intent to cause serious bodily harm was not specified. At the same time, in a situation where the perpetrator commits violent acts with an unspecified intent, the act is subject to qualification based on the actual consequences, which are causing serious bodily harm and the death of the victim through negligence.

In case No. 1−283/2015 court sentenced the defendant to restriction of freedom under Article 114 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, but here the culprit had multiple injuries, and this factor could not be ignored. The plot of the case: individuals were drinking alcohol, and when the future defendant was about to leave, he was offered to reimburse part of the alcohol he had bought. But he refused on the grounds that he had not been informed of such a condition — he was simply invited as a guest, and that was it. For this, the drinking buddy was beaten for a long time, which is why the defendant could not leave the house — first they started beating him at the front door, then he locked himself in the bathroom and called his brother from there, and a moment later the defendant was hit on the head with a pipe, causing him to lose consciousness. Having come to, the defendant saw a knife lying on the table, grabbed it and stabbed one drinking buddy in the abdomen and the other in the back. Interestingly, neither the prosecution nor the court denied the existence of a state of necessary defense, but simply stated that its limits were exceeded. Unfortunately, the verdict does not contain any expert opinion regarding the harm caused to the defendant — at the same time, the investigator questioned at the court hearing (he arrived at the scene and saw the consequences of the "get-together" with his own eyes) noted numerous bodily injuries on the defendant, blood coming from the head, as well as a broken jaw. Nevertheless, the beaten man was brought to criminal liability for causing grievous bodily harm committed while exceeding the limits of necessary defense.

In the verdict in case No. 1−26/2019 court notes that the accused had the opportunity to calculate his actions and strike in such a way as, on the one hand, to stop the aggressive actions of the deceased, and on the other, not to cause him life-threatening bodily harm. The defendant’s goal, as the court concluded, was not to repel aggression from the victim, as the defense refers to, but to cause serious bodily harm, which contradicts the meaning of Part 1 of Article 37 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, according to which the goal of the defender can only be to stop an attack. The court considered the motive for causing such harm to be the personal hostility of the perpetrator, which arose during the conflict between him and the deceased. The defense’s argument that the blows were not inflicted on vital organs was found untenable by the court, since it was refuted by the expert’s conclusion. As the judge of the Prikubansky District Court pointed out, at the stage of the preliminary investigation, the defendant admitted guilt in committing the act regulated by Part 4 of Article 111 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation in full and repented of his actions. The court concluded: "…the defense’s argument that the defendant caused serious bodily harm to the victim, exceeding the limits of necessary defense, is considered by the court as a way of defending against a reasonably brought charge and an attempt to mitigate his responsibility for what he did."

In case No. 1−736/2018 defendant partially admitted her guilt and claimed that she had indeed caused the death of the victim by stabbing him in the neck, but did not want to do so, since she was defending herself from an attack. The court did not agree that the actions should be classified under Part 1 of Article 108 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation as murder committed in excess of necessary self-defense. Based on the expert’s report, it was established that the nature of the wound and its location on the body indicate the presence of intent to cause death. Thus, the victim’s single blind penetrating stab wound to the neck was inflicted during his lifetime, a short period of time before death, which was confirmed by the morphological nature of the injuries and forensic histological examination data. In addition, after stabbing the victim, the defendant washed the knife with which she had stabbed him and put it back in place, having first wiped the blood from the blade with a white kitchen towel.

Case No. 1−1375/2019 is a typical example of an "uninvited guest" intrusion: at night, the accused was on the territory of his own home and was doing household chores. At half past eleven at night, the victim, with whom the defendant had a very difficult relationship, arrived to visit him. The guest entered the owner’s territory, and after that a heated argument broke out, as a result of which the owner of the property hits his counterpart twice in the torso with a kitchen knife. While the victim was dying from blood loss, the accused washed the blood off the knife with running water, threw the knife into the bushes and fled the scene. As part of the criminal case, the defense defended the position that the defendant’s actions were the defense of an individual from a socially dangerous attack, which was associated with violence that was life-threatening to the defender. But the court disagreed: the defendant had no injuries, so it was concluded that there was no assault involving violence dangerous to the life of the accused or an immediate threat of such violence on the part of the victim. The court concluded that the motive for the murder was the presence of a long-term hostile relationship with the victim. The case eventually went to the Fourth Court of Cassation (No. 77−1980/2020), which also did not find a state of necessary defense in the incident, but recognized the presence of a mitigating circumstance — the unlawful behavior of the deceased (arrival on the territory of the convicted person’s home without any permission, systematic prolonged insults to the accused) — and reduced the sentence in the form of imprisonment by six months (it was 7 years, now it is 6.6 years).

A person who has committed a minor or moderate crime for the first time may be released from criminal liability with the imposition of a judicial fine if he or she has made amends for the damage caused. Since the object of the crime under Article 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (drug possesion without goal of distibution) is public morality and public health, it seems that the damage is caused to these categories. That is, it is in this plane that compensation should occur.

The Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation in the Review of judicial practice of exemption from criminal liability with the imposition of a judicial fine (Article 76.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) explained that the methods of compensation for damage and amending harm must be legal in nature and not infringe on the rights of third parties. At the same time, the possible methods of compensation for damage and amending harm caused by the crime are not limited by law. Taking this into account, the harm caused by the crime can be compensated in any form that allows for the compensation of the negative changes caused by the crime to public relations protected by criminal law. Clause 2 of the Review cites a court ruling stating that the defendant made amends for the damage caused by the crime by voluntarily performing community service at the " Social Rehabilitation Center for Minors " and donating money to this institution for charity.

Release from criminal liability with the imposition of a judicial fine allows for the termination of a criminal case on non-rehabilitating grounds. If a petition for release from criminal liability with the imposition of a judicial fine is granted, the court imposes a monetary penalty, the amount of which is determined in the manner prescribed by Article 104.5 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

Unfortunately, the use of this tool is not as common in Krasnodar criminal cases as in cases in Moscow and the Moscow Region — in these regions, a significant (for a criminal defense lawyer from Krasnodar, at least) number of criminal cases under Part 1 of Article 228 are concluded precisely by releasing the person from criminal liability with the imposition of a judicial fine. But this does not mean that this mechanism cannot be used in Krasnodar — there are simply no prerequisites for the presence of objective difficulties in implementing such a plan. Everything depends on the chosen strategy for the criminal case and, of course, the financial situation of the accused in conjunction with his determination to use a certain amount of money.

At the same time, in Krasnodar there is judicial practice of successful release from criminal liability with the appointment of a judicial fine: in the Oktyabrsky District Court of the city of Krasnodar in case No. 1−395/2022The defendant was released from criminal liability, and the criminal case was dismissed with the imposition of a criminal-legal measure in the form of a judicial fine in the amount of 15,000 rubles. The defendant committed a crime under Part 1 of Article 228 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (which falls under the category of minor crimes) for the first time, admitted his guilt in the act in full and repented. The defendant also had a positive character reference at his place of residence, was not registered with a narcologist or psychiatrist, and had a minor child in his care. He had the qualification of a hand-to-hand combat instructor. The judge noted that the defendant had made amends for the harm caused to society by making a donation of 15,000 rubles to the Pokolenie (Generation) charity foundation for social support of citizens, which provides charitable assistance to the elderly, which in its totality are mitigating circumstances and, in the absence of aggravating circumstances, indicate a decrease in the degree of public danger of the committed illegal act. Thus, the court attributed a voluntary donation to a charitable foundation with a formal crime to the circumstances of making amends for the harm caused by the crime.

Also, as can be seen from the Krasnodar court decision and Moscow judicial practice in general, the charitable organization to which the contribution is made does not necessarily have to be related to the topic of drugs. The very fact that the defendant’s monetary donation is aimed at improving public relations in the sphere of public morality and public health already plays a role in recognizing the making amends for the harm caused.

The only thing is that it is necessary to carefully consider the choice of a charitable organization from the point of view of its socio-political activity. If an organization openly and intensively pursues any political goals or has been recognized as a foreign agent due to the organization’s political activities, then I would warn against transferring money to such NGOs — the prosecution may take a position in which the accused will be presented as a person who is not making a charitable donation, but sponsoring a political force sympathetic to him — i.e. the payment made was not intended to restore or compensate for the damage.

In any case, such a maneuver should be implemented if the accused has a professional defense attorney, and the choice of a charitable organization should also be made with the participation of a lawyer.

Money laundering is the legalization of proceeds from crime. Federal Law No. 115-FL of August 7, 2001 "On Combating the Legalization (Laundering) of Proceeds from Crime and the Financing of Terrorism" defines this activity in Article 3 as giving a legal appearance to the ownership, use or disposal of funds or other property obtained as a result of committing a crime. Thus, money laundering includes the following elements: the existence of a crime, the receipt of property as a result of committing a crime and the implementation of certain procedures aimed at giving the proceeds from crime a legal appearance, i.e. the implementation of actions as a result of which this property will be assessed as lawfully in circulation and belonging to a certain person on legal grounds. The following chain is built: crime — income from it — simulation of the "white" origin of the property.

Contrary to various ideas about crime, a criminal who has become rich cannot just buy cars, villas and luxury items (in Krasnodar, you can’t even buy a garage — case No. 1−9/2022 in the Sovetsky District Court of Krasnodar). Tax authorities will want to know why such a wealthy figure did not pay personal income tax in the proper amount, and Rosfinmonitoring will investigate the sources of income. Therefore, criminals need to legalize their criminal earnings — give them the appearance of legality. And then use the legalized (laundered) money to arrange their life.

To do this, they carry out various financial transactions — in accordance with paragraph 6 of the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated 07.07.2015 N 32 "On judicial practice in cases of legalization (laundering) of funds or other property acquired by criminal means, and on the acquisition or sale of property knowingly obtained by criminal means, any transactions with funds (cash and non-cash payments, cash transactions, transfer or exchange of funds, exchange of one currency for another, etc.) are recognized as such — or transactions aimed at establishing, changing or terminating civil rights and obligations, as well as creating the appearance of the emergence or transfer of civil rights and obligations. Financial transactions and the above transactions have one and only goal — to disguise the connection of the legalized property with the criminal source of its origin. Currently, the topic of legalization of proceeds from crime and cryptocurrency is incredibly relevant in the drug trade. Article 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (article on money laundering by a person who has committed a crime) in modern judicial practice is most often applied in conjunction with Article 228.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (article on the sale of narcotic drugs).

So, it should be noted that if the "crypto" is obtained by criminal means (as a result of committing a crime), then the actions with it, which ultimately constitute financial transactions within the meaning of the Russian Federation law, will be related to the objective side of the crime prohibiting the legalization of proceeds from crime. Any actions with cryptocurrency that does not have a criminal origin, including the conversion of "clean" money into "crypto", do not constitute a crime.

Unfortunately, Russian courts did not immediately decide so: at the dawn of the practice of considering criminal cases on money laundering through cryptocurrencies, there were sentences stating that the conversion from "fiat to bitcoins" on an exchanger is laundering by default due to the criminality of the schemes of crypto-exchanges and exchangers. The argument was based on the fact that platform operators often use less than legal schemes for the movement of funds (for example, those that involve the use of offshore jurisdictions — almost all exchangers are registered offshore, including in the offshore zone of Latvia), so the user in any case commits legalization of proceeds from crime — because money from the exchanger is always criminal. This position initially seemed untenable from the point of view of the same "plenum on money laundering" (it is impossible to prosecute a person who is not aware of the criminal origin of the income + a guilty verdict or a ruling from paragraph 4 of the "plenum" on the main crime is required to impute legalization of proceeds from crime), and therefore, as expected, did not receive stability in judicial practice, remaining only in some sentences.

Hence, one can ask the question: "But when can transactions with "crypto" obtained as a result of committing a crime be recognized as legalization of proceeds from crime?"

In accordance with paragraph 3, clause 1 of the "plenum on money laundering", the subject of crimes provided for in Articles 174 and 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation may include funds converted from virtual assets (cryptocurrency) acquired as a result of committing a crime. Based on this wording, we can conclude that the "plenum" in 2019 (then it was necessary to do this due to the FATF requirements) said that the money received from the sale of "crypto" can also be recognized as income obtained by criminal means, and therefore the performance of certain financial transactions with them can be qualified as an objective aspect of the crime regulated in Art. 174 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation or 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Thus, the Supreme Court of Russia did not recognize cryptocurrency as the subject of the crimes specified in Art. 174 and 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, but left money as such. In the context of all of the above, the legalization of income obtained by criminal means will not be, in particular, the conversion of one cryptocurrency into another: from Bitcoin to Etherium, from Monero to Bitcoin, and so on.

Nothing in this Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation declared that the operation of exchanging cryptocurrency for "fiat" in itself is a financial transaction committed for the purpose of disguising the criminal origin of the income. But the courts for some reason mostly understood this paragraph as if the exchange of cryptocurrency for rubles in itself is a financial transaction for money laundering. Yes, the conversion from more confidential "crypto" from more confidential crypto wallets to completely visible bank accounts is for some reason considered an attempt to disguise income obtained by criminal means.

Although this opinion prevails, it is still not contained in every first sentence. Of course, the fact of the mere exchange of "crypto" for "fiat" through an exchanger cannot serve as a sufficient basis for considering such an act to be a crime under Article 174 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation or 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. In this act, there is no real trace and cannot be traced (unless we are talking about some chain of transactions in which the exchange will be considered as an element of the whole scheme) disguising criminal income. The money received after the conversion of crypto is still "dirty", and the "plenum" points to this. But the courts have understood the interpretation of the highest judicial body in their own way, and this is why we can observe very different judicial practice.

For example, the courts and the investigation/inquiry do not often bother with examining the subjective side for the presence of the goal of legalizing the proceeds of crime. Clause 11 of the "plenum on money laundering" states: "The intent to legalize funds or other property acquired by criminal means (as a result of committing a crime) is not evidenced by their disposal for personal consumption" - and this provision should oblige the investigation and the court to examine the presence of a focus on the actions of the accused to disguise the criminality of his income, an attempt to create a gap between the criminal nature of their appearance and the facade of legality. For example, here is an excerpt from the verdict in case No. 1−1786/2023 in the Prikubansky District Court of Krasnodar: the defendant carried out financial transactions in exchangers to convert the cryptocurrency "Bitcoin" into the currency of the Russian Federation, with its subsequent withdrawal to a personal account opened for the specified purpose, with a further transfer to a bank card or cashing out through ATMs. The court indicated that the defendant introduced illegally obtained funds from the illegal sale of narcotics into the financial system of the Russian Federation under the guise of legally earned funds, that is, he gave a legal appearance to the ownership for further use and disposal of the said funds, which he then used for personal needs. In the verdict, we will see that it does not contain any research at all into the presence of the purpose of "laundering": the proof was limited only to the confession of the defendant, the testimony of the witness to whom the bank card was issued, and a statement of transactions on the bank account. De facto, here money laundering began after the conversion of bitcoins into non-cash money.

It is also worth noting that in this case, the defendant agreed with the charges brought against him and the defense did not challenge the imposition of Article 174.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (which may well correspond to a variety of circumstances). A little further, we will look at what happens when the defense does not agree with the defendant’s accusation of legalization of proceeds from crime.

Sometimes the courts explain the criminal nature of the origin of crypto-income by the level of confidentiality characteristic of cryptocurrency turnover. It is often stated that "bitcoin is anonymous, wallets are depersonalized", and the criminality of the income follows from this. The verdict in criminal case 1−468/2021, considered in the Pervomaisky District Court of Krasnodar: as the court noted, the legalization scheme consisted of receiving funds received for distributing stashes and received through financial transactions from a person unidentified by the investigation, in the form of bitcoin cryptocurrency from impersonal bitcoin wallets to one-time impersonal bitcoin wallets of the defendant. They were intended for storing, selling and transferring Bitcoin cryptocurrency. All this happened through a mobile application installed on a smartphone. The accused used a personal account of a QIWI wallet, to which money was received from the conversion of the "crypto". As the court points out, subsequently (i.e. after the legalization of criminally obtained income), the defendant cashed out the "laundered" funds (i.e., the concealment of the criminality of the income occurred, in the court’s opinion, before the transaction to issue cash was carried out), and also made non-cash purchases and transfers of funds to various accounts for the provision of various services, thereby the defendant used and disposed of funds for personal purposes.

It is impossible to agree with this formulation of the problem: cryptocurrencies are already a legal category in the Russian jurisdiction — in 2020, the Federal Law "On Digital Financial Assets, Digital Currency and Amendments to Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation" was adopted, Article 14 of which regulates the specifics of cryptocurrency circulation in the Russian Federation. This regulatory legal act allows for the execution of civil transactions and (or) operations that entail the transfer of digital currency from one owner to another, so it cannot be said that any acquisition of cryptocurrency is illegal and by default implies pursuing the goal of money laundering. And the disclosure of the identity of the owner of the crypto wallet to the state (the Federal Tax Service, in particular) is carried out on a voluntary basis. In any criminal case, it is still necessary to prove the existence of a goal to give a legal appearance to income obtained by criminal means, and the mere appearance of a crypto wallet in the event cannot clearly indicate that the legalization scheme was actually launched.

And here we will give an example of a reasoned sentence, in which the judge took the trouble to interpret the essence of the subjective element of the crime, provided for in Article 174 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation — the purpose of giving a legal appearance to income obtained by criminal means, as well as its expression in the objective side of the crime. Case No. 1−224/2022, considered in the Elista City Court of the Republic of Kalmykia, is significant in this sense, and the conclusions made in it can be safely used in the defense strategy: "… the execution of financial transactions or deals in itself cannot prejudge the court’s conclusions on the legalization of funds or other property acquired by criminal means (as a result of committing a crime). In each specific case, it is necessary to establish that the person knowingly made a financial transaction or deal in order to give a legal appearance to the ownership, use and disposal of the said funds or other property."

In this case, for the existence of this element of crime, not only financial operations and transactions with this money and property obtained by criminal means are necessary, but also actions aimed at establishing, changing or terminating civil rights and obligations, giving them the appearance of legality. The intent to legalize funds or other property acquired by criminal means is not indicated by their disposal for personal consumption (purchase of food products, essential goods, receipt of household services, etc.).

The judge then states that the crime provided for in Article 174 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation pertains to crimes in the sphere of economic activity and a mandatory feature of the elements of such a crime is the purpose of involving funds and other property obtained as a result of committing a crime in legal economic circulation. For the presence of this element of a crime, not just financial transactions and deals with property obtained by criminal means are necessary, but actions aimed at establishing, changing or terminating civil rights and obligations, giving them the appearance of legality (contribution to the authorized capital of an organization, to a bank deposit, purchase of assets that generate income, purchase and subsequent sale of goods, property, performance of work, provision of services). This is how legalization as a criminally punishable act differs from the main crime committed using financial institutions, the purpose of which is conspiracy as a way of obtaining income. During legalization, financial transactions and deals are carried out with the purpose of investing criminally obtained income in the legal economy in order to hide their criminal origin, give them the appearance of being legal and create an opportunity to extract subsequent benefits.

As follows from the charges brought, the bitcoins received from the darknet store as payment for committing illegal actions related to the distribution of drug stashes were received and accumulated in an impersonal electronic account (bitcoin wallet) created by the defendant. He also sold the cryptocurrency through various Internet resources for carrying out transactions with bitcoins, transferred the received funds by means of money transfers to the bank accounts of other persons, which the latter disposed of at their own discretion.

The court indicated that it is not evident from the charges brought that the defendant is charged with any actions to conceal the receipt of funds from the sale of cryptocurrency to his accounts, and subsequently to the accounts of persons whose case is separated into a separate proceeding.

Further: "The very fact of carrying out financial transactions with cryptocurrency obtained as a result of committing a crime, to transfer it into Russian rubles in the absence of any actions aimed at giving a legal appearance to the possession, use and disposal of funds, is not a sufficient basis for bringing a person to criminal liability under Article 174 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The said transactions were only a financial instrument aimed at concealing criminal activity in the sphere of illegal drug trafficking. The ultimate goal of these actions was to receive and transfer funds to persons, the case against whom was separated into a separate proceeding, for personal needs." The defendant was acquitted under Part 2 of Article 174 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and recognized as having the right to rehabilitation and compensation for damages associated with the criminal prosecution — and at the same time convicted under other imputed offenses.

There are no clear and directly specified signs in the law that would help to distinguish an act of violation of civil rights from a crime, especially fraud (Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Each specific case is subject to examination at the time of the presence of signs of a crime — at least for the presence of the debtor’s intent to commit theft. Here, everything is absolutely individual, there is no established methodology for distinguishing between theft (crime) and unjust enrichment/causing damages by law or judicial practice — therefore, there is significant scope for proof and interpretation, since everything always rests on circumstantial evidence. It is also worth noting that certain acts can be qualified as misappropriation or embezzlement (Article 160 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) or as causing property damage by deception or abuse of trust (Article 165 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

Within the framework of this problem, the subjective side of the crime is initially examined (which in this case is the decisive factor) — the intention to commit theft under the guise of a trivial transaction is established. If an individual had no intention of fulfilling his/her obligations under the concluded contract and deliberately intended to create a situation where it would be impossible to return money/property in the event of a corresponding demand from his/her counterparty-victim, then such an act is considered a crime.

Therefore, the denial by the "performer-contractor-criminal" of the very fact of concluding a transaction and transferring money (or other property) to him/her by the victim (in the presence of various direct incriminating evidence — bank documents are sufficient) always indicates the commission of fraud. Difficulties arise when the accused does not deny the fact of the transaction.

As part of the analysis of the subjective side and the study of the intent to commit theft, the activities of the potential accused before the transfer of property to him/her are always studied. What is paid attention to:

• whether the suspect/accused carried out entrepreneurial activity (or other professional activity, if required by the circumstances of the criminal case) in anticipation of the transfer of property (the creation of one-day firms or legal entities that arose situationally for the sake of one transaction or some chain of interconnected transactions indicates the presence of criminal intent);
• whether the legal relationship that this subject has entered into is typical for him as a participant in civil transactions (the legal relationship is examined in comparison with other transactions);
• did the suspect/accused actually have the resources and opportunities (in the presence of the circumstance of rational entrepreneurial risk) to fulfill his duties or promises;
• whether the subject has taken any adequate measures aimed at minimizing harm to its counterparties or compensating them for losses;
• did the suspect/accused perform any actions with the property received aimed at concealing it or achieving the goal of placing the property in such a location/state that would make it virtually impossible to return the property to the person who originally transferred it (such intentions may be evidenced by the systematic transfer of money to other jurisdictions, as well as the abuse by the fraudulent debtor of his right to apply to an arbitration court with a statement of bankruptcy).

As a result, the prosecution must discover the intent of the subject who received the property as consideration under an agreement that was not fulfilled by him (in the case of a legal entity, it is necessary to identify the individuals who directly made decisions on the relevant transactions and examine their subjective side for the presence of an intent to commit theft) and weigh the influence of microeconomic or macroeconomic factors on the determination of the resulting non-repayable debt.

The above aspects are in practice the basic markers for distinguishing between a crime and a civil-law failure to fulfill an obligation. Let us also recall that not all such situations can be "subsumed" under Article 159: Article 165 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation mentioned by us can be applied even in cases where the "guilty subject" did not have the intent to steal the property and did not actually take possession of it, but due to some of his actions he himself was left without profit and caused damage to investors. The most common and popular example is criminal cases related to the construction of apartment buildings, in which the heads of developers are brought to criminal liability under paragraph "b" of Part 2 of Article 165 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Such cases involve entities that have been engaged in the relevant activity for a long time and have managed to accumulate some experience of presence in a certain economic sector, but they often "get stuck" in the area of sufficiency of resources necessary for the proper fulfillment of the obligation before it arose. This category belongs to the area of risk inherent in entrepreneurial activity, and the rationality of resorting to such a risk is subject to proof by the defense in criminal proceedings. This is not an easy undertaking — the best tool here is the appointment of a forensic economic examination or the involvement of an appropriate specialist in the case, but a positive outcome for the defendant is absolutely not guaranteed here, although one can count on some mitigation of punishment with a fairly coherent position on "adequate entrepreneurial risk encountered with negative objective factors."

This issue deserves a more comprehensive analysis (and the doctrine of criminal law has such in its archives), but for the purposes of FAQ-section, the above markers may be sufficient in some generalized idea of the approach to distinguishing between a crime and a violation of civil rights without referring to the specifics of individual cases and individual sectors of the economy.

Not all categories of criminal cases are considered with the participation of jury. Here is a certain approximate list, but even in the given list there are some nuances (for example, not all forms of murder can be considered with the participation of jurors: this also depends on the jurisdiction — there is a significant difference between a district court and a regional court):

In a criminal case for which life imprisonment or the death penalty may be imposed, under the following articles:

• Murder two or more persons; or of a person or his relatives in connection with the performance by this person of official duties or the fulfillment of a public duty; or of a minor or other person, obviously for the perpetrator being in a helpless state, as well as accompanied by the kidnapping of a person; or of a woman, obviously for the perpetrator being in a state of pregnancy; or committed with particular cruelty; or committed in a generally dangerous manner; or for the motive of blood feud; or committed by a group of persons, a group of persons by prior conspiracy or an organized group; or for mercenary motives or for hire, as well as accompanied by robbery, extortion or banditry; or for hooligan motives; or with the aim of concealing another crime or facilitating its commission, as well as accompanied by rape or violent acts of a sexual nature; or for reasons of political, ideological, racial, national or religious hatred or enmity, or for reasons of hatred or enmity towards any social group; or for the purpose of using the organs or tissues of the victim; or committed with a public demonstration, including in the media or information and telecommunications networks (including the Internet)
• Illegal production, sale or transfer of narcotic drugs, committed on an especially large scale
• Smuggling of narcotic drugs, committed by an organized group; or in relation to narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances, their precursors or analogues, plants containing narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances or their precursors, or their parts containing narcotic drugs, psychotropic substances or their precursors, in especially large quantities; or with the use of violence against a person carrying out customs or border control
• Attempt on the life of a statesman or public figure
• Attempt on the life of a person administering justice or preliminary investigation
• Attempt on the life of a law enforcement officer
• Genocide

Or in a criminal case under the following articles:

• Kidnapping, committed by an organized group or resulted through negligence in the death of the victim or other serious consequences
• Banditry
• Hijacking an aircraft or watercraft or a railway rolling stock, committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy; or with the use of violence dangerous to life or health, or with the threat of using such violence; or with the use of weapons or objects used as weapons; or if these actions are committed by an organized group or entailed, through negligence, the death of a person or other serious consequences
• Piracy
• Planning, preparing, unleashing or waging an aggressive war
• Public calls for unleashing an aggressive war
• Development, production, stockpiling, acquisition or sale of weapons of mass destruction
• Use of prohibited means and methods of warfare
• Ecocide
• Mercenary activities — recruitment, training, financing or other material support of a mercenary, as well as his use in an armed conflict or military actions, or the same acts committed by a person using his official position or in relation to a minor
• Rehabilitation of Nazism
• Development, production, stockpiling, acquisition or sale of weapons of mass destruction
• Use of prohibited means and methods of warfare
• Genocide
• Attack on persons or institutions enjoying international protection

In a criminal case for which the death penalty or life imprisonment cannot be imposed, for the following offenses:

• Murder without any qualifying features
• Intentional infliction of grievous bodily harm resulting in the death of the victim (s)

Otherwise, the procedure for conducting a trial with the participation of a jury is not particularly different from what is generally accepted in legal practice. The main difference is that in a district court 6 jurors are called, and in a regional court — 8.

In general terms, to simplify:

• Initiation of a criminal case: a criminal case is initiated by an authorized body (investigative committee, police) if there are sufficient grounds to believe that a crime has been committed. Law enforcement officers are required to accept, verify a report of any crime committed or being prepared and, within their competence, make a decision on it no later than 3 days from the date of receipt of the said report, but the period may be extended to 10, and in some cases, up to 30 days. Based on the results of reviewing the report of a crime, the inquiry body, inquiry officer, investigator, head of the investigative body makes one of the following decisions: to initiate a criminal case, to refuse to initiate a criminal case, or to transfer the report according to jurisdiction
• Preliminary investigation and filing of charges: this stage includes collecting evidence, establishing the circumstances of the crime, identifying persons involved in the commission of the act and bringing the person (persons) as an accused. At this stage interrogations, examinations, confrontations, investigative experiments, and other investigative actions are conducted. Preliminary investigation is most often conducted by investigative bodies of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, and inquiry — in certain cases of criminal cases for minor crimes — by police officers. The suspect or accused has the right to file a motion to conclude a pre-trial agreement on cooperation from the moment of the beginning of criminal prosecution until the announcement of the end of the preliminary investigation. In this motion, the suspect or accused indicates what actions he or she undertakes to perform in order to assist the investigation in solving and investigating the crime, exposing and prosecuting other accomplices to the crime, and searching for property obtained as a result of the crime. At this stage, the criminal case may be terminated without reaching the court — the reasons for this may be: absence of corpus delicti, absence of a criminal event, establishment of non-involvement of certain persons, reconciliation with the victim, compensation for damages, release from criminal liability with the appointment of a judicial fine, etc. At the end of the investigation, an indictment or bill of indictment is drawn up, which is sent to the prosecutor. At the end of the investigation, the investigator also familiarizes the parties with the case materials — at this point, the accused has the opportunity to file a petition for a sentence to be passed without a trial due to agreement with the charges brought (on a special procedure) if the accused is accused of committing minor or moderate crimes and the accused has the will to plead guilty. The judge does not conduct a general examination and assessment of the evidence collected in the criminal case. In this case, the circumstances characterizing the personality of the defendant and the circumstances mitigating and aggravating the punishment may be examined. If the judge comes to the conclusion that the charge accepted by the defendant is reasonable and supported by the evidence collected in the criminal case, he/she issues a guilty verdict and sentences the defendant to a punishment that cannot exceed two-thirds of the maximum term or the amount of the most severe type of punishment provided for the crime committed. Also a civil claim may be filed after the initiation of a criminal case and before the end of the judicial investigation during trial.
• Approval of the charge by the prosecutor’s office: the prosecutor’s office checks the materials of the criminal case and approves the indictment, sending it to the court. Or refuses to approve the indictment and returns the criminal case to the investigator.
• Trial: the court of first instance considers the criminal case on the merits. The defense and prosecution present and examine evidence, witnesses, victims, defendants, and experts are questioned. After examining the evidence (judicial investigation stage), the parties proceed to judicial debate, after which the defendant makes the final statement. After the court hearings are over, the court issues a verdict. This may be followed by an appeal and/or cassation appeal. A sentence that has entered into legal force is executed by the relevant institutions and executive authorities. For example, a sentence of imprisonment is served in correctional institutions of the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia.