What is behind the spread of criminal influence in the state - the head of the SSR NPU Ruslan Marchuk
“Establishment or dissemination of criminal influence” — the norm of such content was supplemented by the Criminal Code of Ukraine in June last year. Public resonance arose at the stage of its discussion. The key arguments used by opponents are that the concept is too vague and will allow completely innocent citizens to be “pushed under the sex”. Ruslan Marchuk, Head of the Department of Strategic Investigations of the National Police of Ukraine, told about this in the author's column of the Ukrainska Pravda edition.
“Approximately the same discussions revolved around “appeal for the use of criminal influence.” Even before the final approval in parliament, opponents managed to baptize these new articles of the criminal code as an additional “punishment sword” in the hands of law enforcement officers, who, like in the Middle Ages, will be able to “cut off the heads” of all dissenters and those of them who are not afraid state your position.
More than six months have passed. Who was not lucky enough to get “under” these articles and how we manage to detect such a category of intruders - let's figure it out.
I will not leave the intrigue for the end. The vast majority of the 53 currently suspected under the new articles of the Criminal Code are persons who have a few more facts of illegal activity in their biography, and in some cases even a criminal record.
And no, they are far from social activists, businessmen or politicians. This is criminality. In its concentrated and bright form.
They systematically and consistently not only incline “colleagues” in the criminal world to continue to violate the law, but also organize entire groups, look for accomplices at will, promote unwritten “thieving laws”, dictate their line of conduct.
They become the very “guides” into the criminal world for young and sometimes quite educated citizens who could easily earn a living without the prospect of being convicted.
And now the rhetorical question: will it be possible to help a person get on the path of correction and end criminal activity if in correctional institutions they fall under the same “criminal influence”?
From the practice obtained in a fairly short time, the qualification of articles 255-1 and 255-3 becomes additional to the already declared suspects.
In other words, authoritative representatives of criminal communities “fall for” more “classic” crimes.
Among the “top areas” of their illegal activities are extortion, supply and sale of drugs, theft.
There are also more “bright” figures. For example, a 55-year-old criminal authority from Rivne region, who was wanted for a long time for committing a serious crime - together with his accomplice kidnapped and tortured a man to death in the Zaporizhzhya region.
Law enforcement officers detained the attacker in November last year and reported on suspicion of kidnapping a person (part 3 of Art. 146 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). Then he got into the Volnyansk Penitentiary in Zaporizhzhia.
With a criminal past and a lack of desire to make amends, the abuser showed his talents behind bars.
Our operatives established that the man gained authority among the convicts by violating the established rules of conduct and dictating his own. In addition, he continued to maintain ties with criminal representatives who are at large, encouraged them to commit new and new crimes.
In addition, he monitored illegally obtained funds from the so-called “commune” and advised the dependents of the correctional colony on how best to resolve conflict situations.
All these facts were collected and documented in detail by our employees. Only on the basis of them did the attacker receive an additional suspicion of spreading criminal influence.
I cannot explain the methodology of our work. But I emphasize that this category of criminal proceedings will definitely complement the list of the most difficult in the context of developing a qualitative evidence base, so that it can work for a guilty verdict in court.
As for the appeal for the use of criminal influence - there are still fewer examples for this new article, but there is already a first criminal conviction. One of the most striking cases is the gang exposed in the Dnipropetrovsk region, headed by the “spy” behind Nikopol. The latter organized a whole “bureau of criminal services”, where it was possible to order, for example, the withdrawal of funds, damage to the material values of the offender, beatings, or even protection against threats from representatives of other criminal circles.
For the proper performance of this kind of tasks, a rather “professional” company has gathered: “sightseers” in cities and districts of the Dnipropetrovsk region, local “authorities” and the wife of the organizer.
The contingent of their “clients” is quite diverse - from “colleagues” in crime, to ordinary citizens who previously had no problems with the law.
By the way, among the “services” of the criminal group was the organization of deliveries of prohibited items (phones, products, drugs) to the institutions serving sentences.
In the end, as a result of last week's large-scale special operation involving 250 police officers, six gang members were detained. They and three other henchmen were informed of the suspicions immediately according to several new articles of the Criminal Code of Ukraine.
It is important that seven “clients” of the gang received the prospect of being held responsible for applying for the use of criminal influence — suspicions with the appropriate qualifications (Part 1 of Article 255-3) were also handed to them.
Often, the subjects of the spread of criminal influence organize the supply of drugs to the institutions serving sentences where they are located.
They attract, again, their contacts with the criminal world, find accomplices at will and build whole schemes for the supply of prohibited substances.
There are more than enough clients, because among the dependents of institutions serving sentences there are many drug addicts with experience.
By supplying drugs and psychotropics, offenders only increase their authority and criminal influence. Such examples were found in correctional colonies in Sumy region, Zhytomyr region, Bukovina, Dnipropetrovsk region and in the pre-carpathian detention center.
Another result worth mentioning is the suspicions announced by two “bodies in the law” already.
The first in the history of domestic legal practice was “Giga Ozorgetsky” — at the beginning of February this year he was immediately criminalized by two innovations of the Criminal Code of Ukraine: Part 3 of Article 255-1 (dissemination of criminal influence in society by a person in the status of “a villain in the law”) and Part 1 of Article 255-2 (participation in the conduct of criminal gathering (gathering) of representatives of organized groups and persons who carry out criminal influence, to coordinate criminal activities, including the distribution of spheres of criminal influence). He is one of the youngest “guardians in the law”.
He served his sentence in Novgorod-Seversky correctional colony No. 31 for attempted murder. He established and spread his criminal influence on the territory of the institution through trusted persons, appointed so-called “spies”.
The second was “Kamo Moskovsky”. 58-year-old citizen of the Russian Federation, who received suspicion on April 1. Our operatives, together with the investigators, have collected enough materials confirming his intentions and actions to dictate “Vorov” laws and incite others to commit new crimes at the Chernihiv point of temporary stay of foreigners and stateless persons, where he was moved after his arrest at the beginning of the year.
A representative of the criminal “top” came to Ukraine to avoid responsibility, and got a very real prospect of spending up to 15 years behind bars.
Summarizing the acquired practice and understanding how much work still awaits us in this direction, the main thing is obvious: the fight against the establishment and spread of criminal influence is one of our priority areas of work.
Eradicating this phenomenon and bringing offenders to this kind of criminal responsibility will help not only to establish justice, but also to break the “circular guarantee” of criminality, removing the influence of the main “guardians” of antivalues”.
Ruslan Marchuk
Head of the Department of Strategic Investigations
National Police of Ukraine
