Counterfeiting: criminal-legal and forensic characteristics

This article presents a study of the criminal-legal and forensic characteristics of counterfeiting. The relevance of the research topic is due to the fact that in industrial and post-industrial societies, unlike pre-industrial ones, money and securities are the most important regulators of economic relations necessary to achieve public and personal interests. Counterfeiting leads to increased inflation, social tension, decreased confidence in banknotes and securities, a decline in stock market activity, and discrediting of government agencies. Improving criminal law and improving forensic technology, tactics, and methods in the field of counterfeiting investigation are the keys to minimizing these negative socio-economic phenomena. The purpose of the research is a comprehensive study of the main problems of regulation and combating counterfeiting. The following methods were used as a methodological basis: analysis, synthesis, deduction, induction, generalization, and the formal legal method. The author of the article concludes that the object of counterfeiting is social relations in the sphere of exchange of goods, works, services, and not only social relations in the credit and monetary sphere, as many legal experts believe. A forensic characteristic of counterfeiting has been carried out (the subject of the criminal offense, the methods of production and sale of counterfeit money and securities, the places of their concealment during storage and transportation, etc. have been analyzed). The Part 1 of Article 186 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation must be articulated as follows: «Production for the purpose of sale of counterfeit foreign or Russian currency or documentary securities, as well as storage, transportation for the purpose of sale and sale of knowingly counterfeit foreign or Russian currency or documentary securities».