Features of forensic commercial expertise of jewelry products

The article examines the peculiarities of conducting a forensic commodity examination of jewelry, which is appointed when it is necessary to investigate their value and other characteristics in such legal processes as civil, economic, administrative, criminal, as well as in case of violation of customs rules. The concept of «jewelry» is revealed in several aspects: as objects of commodity science, gemological examination, research of precious metals and alloys; their types depending on the materials of manufacture. The main categories of forensic examination of jewelry are considered: subject, objects of examination, tasks, methods and stages of research. The tasks of this research are classified into three groups: identification, classification, and diagnostic. The analysis of research tasks and methods is based on the demonstration of expert actions with precious products as a whole and their individual components - inserts, precious metals, precious stones, as well as accompanying documents. Based on the analysis of expert practice, methods of expert research of jewelry were determined, which include: organoleptic, instrumental (measuring), calculation methods, express method, value method of research. Taking into account that in order to conduct research on jewelry, the expert faces the task of determining the type, mass, quality and cost of the components and the product as a whole, the type of precious stone, precious metal, its content in the product, in practice a comprehensive examination is prescribed. A commodity expert, a gemologist and a specialist in metals and alloys are involved in conducting this expert study. It has been found that the stages of forensic examination of jewelry appear as a general structural and logical scheme of expert research. The main stages are defined as: preliminary inspection of the jewelry and analysis of accompanying documentation; research and analysis of the facts obtained by the expert; diagnostics of stones, metals regarding the study of inserts, etc.; documentation of an expert opinion. In order to improve the process of investigation of criminal offenses where jewelry is the object of the criminal offense, the main features of the forensic examination of the relevant jewelry are summarized.