The initiative is being prepared by Elina Sidorenko, a member of the Russian Presidential Council for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights and the general director of White Internet ANO. As she told Rossiyskaya Gazeta, the development of the project has already been completed and it is planned to be discussed in the Federation Council and the government in the coming months. However, in order to create such a fund, legislative changes are first needed.
“Our program includes tougher sanctions for organized cybercrime, especially since most provocations and frauds occur from abroad,” says Sidorenko. “Judicial and law enforcement systems must deal with cybercriminals with extreme severity, but by digging deeper and showing loyalty when citizens were involved in crimes through provocations, fraud, threats and deception via instant messengers, social networks and smartphones.”
Citizens often do not have the opportunity to go to court or obtain a decision in situations where the investigation fails to identify suspects. In this regard, the victim of fraud cannot expect to compensate for his losses even in the future. Probably, in a few years, technical capabilities will make it possible to determine where and how a completely digital crime occurred. However, many victims will not be able to receive compensation due to the lack of a court decision, many experts say.
Moreover, damage caused by digital crimes accounts for more than a third of the total damage from all crimes committed. The previous maximum, set in 2022, was updated to 1.6 billion rubles.
“However, the volume of funds returned by banks is only 8.7% of the total volume of stolen funds,” says Elina Sidorenko. “Compensation for damages in a civil claim filed in criminal cases is ineffective because the criminals are mostly located abroad, mainly in Ukraine, and it is almost impossible to recover damages from the person who caused the damage.”
One of the instruments to support victims could be a special state fund that would compensate the losses of fraudsters at least for the most vulnerable segments of the population: pensioners, teenagers, large families and families of SVO participants.
According to the authors of the project, the fund could solve a number of problems. The first and most important, of course, is the payment of compensation for the damage caused. Moreover, such compensation, as planned, could be paid in the pre-trial phase. The mechanism is as follows: law enforcement officers record the fact of a crime and initiate a criminal case. The victims immediately receive the money.
And law enforcement officers will be on the lookout for criminals. Once the fraudsters are found, they will be forced to pay their debts to the fund.
“RG” dossier
On July 25, a law will come into force that obliges bankers to compensate citizens for losses if fraudsters steal money. However, the new rules apply only to theft of funds without the client’s participation, i.e. situations where the client did not give the fraudsters access to his money: he did not provide card details, SMS codes, login or password. If a person did not know about the transfer or did not give his consent and his funds were nevertheless transferred to the attacker, banks will have to compensate the amount of the transaction. The compensation mechanism will not include situations where a person voluntarily transfers money to fraudsters, representatives of the Bank of Russia stressed. Therefore, if a person has been defrauded by telephone scammers, he will unfortunately not be able to count on compensation from the bank.
