The author explores the issue of compensation for damages in criminal cases of fraud committed in collaboration using information and communication technologies (ICT). It is noted that traditional investigative tools are ineffective for this category of crimes due to the peculiarities of their criminological characteristics. Firstly, the damage from such crimes amounts to billions of rubles. Secondly, a large number of people who may not know each other are involved in the commission of the crime. Typically, the organizers of such crimes are not identified, and the crimes have a remote nature. In this regard, at the stage of the preliminary investigation, the investigator may recognize the victim as a civil plaintiff; however, the civil defendant will be an unidentified person. Thirdly, the search for stolen funds in such criminal cases is extremely difficult. Fraudsters use techniques to break down amounts ("mixers") to hide them in various accounts, and they also convert money into cryptocurrency, which allows them to remove it from the jurisdiction of national banking systems and makes tracking financial flows almost impossible. In the work, the author employed general scientific methods that allowed for the study of the institution of compensation for damages not as a single action (for example, the seizure of property), but as a complex system that includes the activities of investigators, prosecutors, the court, and the ICT infrastructure (banks, communication operators). Empirical research methods were applied to study practical issues of damage compensation in judicial and investigative practice. The problem of compensation for damages in fraud cases committed in collaboration using ICT required a reconsideration of the role of the state as a whole, rather than just an expansion of the investigator's powers. The introduction in 2025 of a new procedural coercive measure in the form of suspending operations with monetary funds proved to be a sufficient procedural tool. A comprehensive analysis of the possibilities for applying existing civil law institutions regarding drop accounts and bio-drops showed that, based on current legislation, a court decision imposes an obligation on a bio-drop to return unjust enrichment just as it does on a drop, even if the obligations of unjust enrichment arose as a result of the actions of third parties. Effective compensation for victims of ICT crimes is possible only through a comprehensive approach.
Ul'yana Igorevna Bogatskaya (Thu,) studied this question.