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Reference:

Ideal traces as an element of the forensic characteristics of "Your relative got into trouble" frauds

Revenko Natal'ya Ivanovna

PhD in Law

Associate Professor; Department of Criminal Procedure and Criminalistics; Omsk State University named after F.M. Dostoevsky

644099, Russia, Omsk region, Omsk, Krasina str., 2, sq. 40

revenko.ni@mail.ru
Other publications by this author
 

 

DOI:

10.7256/2454-0706.2024.8.71447

EDN:

NFOEJA

Received:

10-08-2024


Published:

19-08-2024


Abstract: The subject of the study is the ideal traces formed when committing frauds against the elderly, using the method of providing false information by phone that their close relative or acquaintance was in a traffic accident and needed help. The mechanism of formation of traces for this type of fraud depends on the method of its commission in modern conditions, when fraudsters remotely convince victims to transfer money through a courier. When committing these crimes, a set of ideal traces is formed, which in criminology include the testimony of victims, witnesses, suspects, and accused. The investigator's knowledge of the typical features of the ideal traces of the type of crime under consideration will allow to establish the mechanism of committing a criminal act, identify the circle of witnesses to the crime, determine the list of investigative actions aimed at collecting evidence. Research methods: the research is based on comparative legal, formal legal, systemic structural and specific sociological methods. The analysis of the materials of criminal cases allowed us to conclude about a certain set of ideal traces formed during the commission of the type of fraud in question. At the initial stage of the investigation, the testimony of the victims, who provide complete information about the event of the crime, is of great importance. The paper provides the author's justification for the conditions of presentation for the identification of a suspect by voice. Among the close relatives or acquaintances of the victim, three groups of witnesses have been identified who should be questioned during the investigation of the type of crimes in question. These include persons whose name the fraudsters presented themselves to; persons to whom the victim reported the incident and persons who are eyewitness. The ideal traces for this category of fraud include the testimony of suspected couriers, who, as a rule, plead guilty and give confessions. The testimony of other persons who contacted the courier and have information about the crime event is also important.


Keywords:

fraud investigation, forensic characteristics, ideal traces, testimony, fraudster, elderly people, victim, witness, courier, relative

This article is automatically translated.

In criminology, one of the elements of the criminalistic characteristics of crimes includes typical traces, or the mechanism of trace formation [1, p. 43]. When committing fraud against the elderly in the way "Your relative is in trouble", there remains a certain set of material and ideal traces, the knowledge of which will help the investigator in the disclosure and investigation of this type of crime. The mechanism of trace formation is influenced by the method chosen by the fraudster to commit it and transfer funds to the victims [2, p. 85].

Dissertation research by S. A. Alekseev [3], K. V. Vinogradova [4], S. R. Nizaeva [5], I.e. Snezhkova [6] is devoted to the methodology of investigating hotel types of fraud. The specifics of the investigation of frauds committed against the elderly are contained in the works of G. M. Selyuzhitskaya [7], A.V. Sycheva [8] and others. However, these works do not focus on the study of ideal traces in fraud cases, in a perfect way "Your relative got into trouble."

The considered method of fraud has recently become widespread [9, p. 95]. Scammers, as a rule, call a landline phone, find out the cell phone number from the victims and, keeping them in touch for an average of 1.5 – 2 hours, convince them to transfer the money stored in the house through a courier. Fraudsters convince victims that the money is needed to avoid bringing a close relative to criminal responsibility or to carry out an urgent complex operation of a relative injured in an accident (grandson, daughter, son, daughter-in-law, etc.) or a close person, friend. During the investigation, as a rule, only the courier is detained, the identities of other members of the criminal group are not established. Difficulties in identifying the organizers and perpetrators of the criminal group are related to the fact that fraudsters make calls from subscriber numbers belonging to telephone containers located abroad when using IP telephony.

In such an investigative situation, information about the mechanism of the committed crime can be obtained from ideal traces, which in criminology include the testimony of victims, witnesses, suspects, accused, experts, specialists. Revealing the features of ideal traces in this category of criminal cases, N. I. Malykhina and S. V. Kuzmina point out that one of them "is the practical impossibility of the victim to capture the appearance of the fraudster in memory due to the remote nature of the commission of the crime" [10, p. 136]. Despite the fact that the victims cannot report the appearance of the callers, their testimony is of great importance before the arrest of the fraudulent courier. According to A. A. Kuznetsov, "obtaining information from the victim when committing remote fraud is actually the main evidence of the crime committed" [11, p. 90].

During the preliminary investigation, despite the elderly age of the victims, in most cases they give full and exhaustive testimony about the event. B. P. Smagorinsky and A.V. Sycheva, characterizing the behavior of victims of fraud, note that they "take an active position, help the investigation in the disclosure and investigation of the crime: provide all necessary documentation, related to the event under investigation" [12, p. 100].

In the presence of certain age-related changes in mental processes, expressed, in particular, in a decrease in critical thinking, an increase in decision-making time, elderly people remember and describe in detail the event quite well due to, as noted by I. V. Yaroslavtseva, S. A. Dorokhina, specific situational thinking characteristic of this category of victims [13, p. 69].

Victims in cases of this category indicate quite accurately: the time of receipt of the call; the duration of the conversation; the numbers of the identified phones; the content of the conversation with the scammers; the peculiarities of their voice, the manner of conversation; the names and positions they called; how they were addressed; who was present during the conversation; the circumstances of the traffic accident that happened to their close relative. The victims describe in detail what information they provided to the scammers; the amount of money transferred to couriers; the number of bills and their face value; the packaging of money; the behavior of couriers at the time of receiving money; their appearance, clothes; also describe in detail their behavior after the couriers left, the content of telephone conversations with loved ones after transferring money to couriers, etc.

An analysis of the interrogations of the victims allowed us to conclude that they do not have difficulties in describing the stolen cash and the method of packaging it. So, the victim reported that 320,000 rubles were stolen from her in banknotes: 2,000 rubles – 10 pieces, 5,000 rubles – 60 pieces; she wrapped the money in a cloth, put it in a plastic bag. In another case, testimony was given that the fraudster was given money in the amount of 100,000 rubles in a cardboard package – bills: 14 pieces with a face value of 5,000 rubles and 15 pieces with a face value of 2,000 rubles [Verdict of the Kirovsky District Court of Tomsk dated 12/29/2023 in case No. 1-104/2023 // Judicial and regulatory acts of the Russian Federation. – URL: https://sudact.ru/regular/doc/c08euDEapBN0/].

The victims describe the couriers' appearance in sufficient detail. For example: "I gave the money to a woman who looks about 40 years old, Slavic appearance, height about 175 – 180 cm, medium build, light brown hair color" [Verdict of the Kirovsky District Court of Tomsk dated 12/29/2023 in case No. 1-104/2023]. Another victim described the fraudulent courier as follows: "Opening the door, he saw a woman who looked about 40 years old, about 175 years old, of solid build, large face, plump lips. She was wearing a sweater made of "knitwear" material with an open neck, long sleeves, light color, plain. On the legs are tight knitted leggings of light gray color without drawings" [Verdict of the Kirovsky District Court of Tomsk dated 12/29/2023 in case No. 1-104/2023].

V. I. Bilyk, D. V. Kuzmenko note that the testimony of the victim contributes to "the reliable establishment of the circumstances of the crime event, the identity of the offender, the method of committing the crime, the sources of other ideal, material or virtual traces of the crime" [14, p. 79]. According to the testimony of the victim about the appearance of the fraudulent courier, his subjective portrait is created, which is later used to search for a person [15, p. 83]. After the courier is detained, the victims almost always confidently identify him during the investigative action of presenting for identification.

In the legal literature, suggestions are made about the need for a detailed description of the voice of fraudsters who communicated with the victim by phone, for subsequent identification [16, p. 16],[17, p. 23]. As practice shows in cases of this category, in most cases, victims determine only the gender of the caller by voice or give a general description of the voice of scammers. For example: "According to the voice of a man in his 30s, he spoke very politely and tactfully, he did not have any peculiarities of voice" [Verdict of the Leninsk-Kuznetsk City Court of the Kemerovo region dated 10/27/2023 in case No. 1-705/2023 // Judicial and regulatory acts of the Russian Federation. – URL: https://sudact.ru/regular/doc/BuAZNmMtPBVV/]. This information can be used to put forward a version about the identity of the members of the criminal group, their age, nationality, place of residence, but, in our opinion, it is not enough to identify by voice.

We believe that the production of an investigative action for identification by voice during the investigation of the type of fraud in question is not always advisable for a number of reasons. The perception and memorization of sounds and speech is much more difficult than visual images. Moreover, due to age-related changes in analyzer systems, including the auditory analyzer, it is obvious that it is difficult for elderly people to operate with information coming through this analyzer. Obviously, it is more likely to identify by voice the person with whom the victim communicated for a long time (relative, close friend, colleague, etc.).

We believe that due to short-term communication, elderly people can remember the features of a fraudster's speech in detail and in detail only in some exceptional cases. Firstly, if the caller's speech has certain pronounced features (accent, stuttering, dialect and other pronunciation features). But, as practice shows, persons calling victims have relatively "clean" speech. Secondly, if the features of the fraudster's speech are similar to the pronunciation, phonetics of famous people (for example, politicians, artists) or relatives, friends, etc. Thirdly, those victims whose professional activity was related to the perception of sounds (for example, a musician, sound engineer, etc.) can differentially perceive and remember the features of a fraudster's speech.

Thus, since accurate perception and memorization of speech features in most cases is quite a difficult task for the elderly, there is reason to believe that conducting an investigative action, voice identification should be applied selectively by the investigator in cases where there are grounds for this. In particular, if during the interrogation it was possible to establish that the victim paid attention and remembered certain features of the fraudster's speech, or if the victim has the ability to perceive sound information as a result, for example, of the professional activity of a musician. Otherwise, there is a high probability that it will not be possible to obtain reliable information during the investigative action, voice identification, or even an elderly victim may mistakenly not recognize in the voice of the fraudster the one who called him at the time of the crime.

The ideal traces also include the testimony of witnesses (relatives and acquaintances of the victims), which can be divided into three groups. The first group is the relatives of the victim, who allegedly got into a traffic accident. The second group is the persons to whom the victim informed about the event that happened to him. When investigating this category of criminal cases, it may be the same person. The third group consists of people who were present during his conversation with the scammers. The testimony of all three groups of witnesses is important for establishing the mechanism of committing a crime and proving its event.

The first group of witnesses provides information confirming that they did not get into a traffic accident, did not ask the victim for money. Together with the witnesses of the second group, they report that the victim really had this amount of money and tell from the words of the victim what happened to him, about his behavior after the crime.

Despite the fact that the witnesses of the first group may live in other localities, the investigator must interrogate them independently or send an order to conduct an interrogation. In the practice of investigation, there are examples when investigators do not interrogate a person close to the victim, whose name the fraudster introduced himself, since he lives in another city. So, the victim in the criminal case lived in Tomsk, and her granddaughter, who allegedly got into a traffic accident, lived in another city. The investigator questioned only the daughter of the victim, who lived in Tomsk, who explained during the interrogation that "her daughter lives in another city, was not in Tomsk at the time of the crime, was not going to come, everything is fine with her, did not get into an accident, did not hit anyone" [Verdict of the Kirovsky District Court of Tomsk dated 12/29/2023 in case No. 1-104/2023]. In this example, during the interrogation of the victim's daughter, the investigator received information about the actions of another witness (the victim's granddaughter – the person whose name the fraudster presented himself) according to her mother, instead of directly interrogating the latter.

In the practice of investigation, there are cases when investigators do not take any action at all to identify and interrogate witnesses of the first two categories, proving the fact that an allegedly close relative did not get into trouble only by the testimony of the victim or the person who was present at the time of the transfer of money. In our opinion, in order to verify the version about the non-involvement of a loved one who allegedly got into a traffic accident, he must be interrogated for committed fraudulent actions.

The witnesses of the third group include eyewitness witnesses, who are very rare in cases of this category, which is not typical for traditional fraud. This is due to the fact that the victims of this type of fraud are elderly people who, as a rule, live alone or were alone at home at the time of the crime. However, as practice shows, the witnesses in this case are the elderly relatives of the victim who were nearby at the time of the crime. Due to their age, they may not fully understand the essence of the events taking place, but subsequently describe the actions of the victim, his conversation with scammers, the appearance of the courier and identify the latter during presentation for identification.

In an investigative situation, when a suspect is detained, his testimony is important. Couriers as part of a criminal group often commit many crimes in different cities for a long time and take a conflict-free position during the investigation of all episodes. In all the cases we studied, the couriers confessed, contributed to the disclosure of crimes, which the court took into account when imposing punishment as a mitigating circumstance.

In his testimony, the fraudulent courier describes each episode in detail and tells: about the way he was involved in criminal activity; how communication was maintained with other members of the group; about the victim's place of residence and how he got to him; the appearance of the victim and other persons who were with him; the amount of money, the number of bills, what denomination and how they were packed; how much interest he kept for himself, to which account, which bank and from which bank terminal he transferred money. The suspect confirms the testimony given by him during the interrogation during the investigative action, checking the testimony on the spot. If there are significant contradictions between the testimony of the victim and the suspect, a confrontation is held.

In cases where a fraudulent courier was involved in a criminal group by his acquaintances engaged in the same criminal activity, his testimony will serve as ideal traces. For example, K., who was interrogated as a witness, who had previously been involved in a criminal group, offered V.'s friend to earn extra money by taking money from grandmothers, and told him the phone number of the curator in the Telegram messenger [Verdict of the Leninsk-Kuznetsky City Court of the Kemerovo Region dated 10/27/2023 in case No. 1-705/2023].

The fraudulent courier gets to the place of residence of the victim indicated by the organizers of the crime, as a rule, by taxi. In most cases, he asks the taxi driver to wait and, after committing a crime, gets with the same driver to the place where the ATM is located to transfer money. In this case, the evidentiary value is the testimony of taxi drivers. They name the application used, the car they work on, the specifics of fulfilling the order of interest to the investigator, the appearance of the suspect, his behavior in the car before being delivered to the crime scene and after paying him [Verdict of the Leninsk-Kuznetsky City Court of the Kemerovo Region dated 10/27/2023 in case No. 1-705/2023].

The analysis of the materials of criminal cases shows that the totality of ideal traces in the commission of fraud depends on the method used. At the initial stage of the investigation of frauds committed in the way "Your relative got into trouble", due to the fact that it is not possible to identify the persons who called the victim, the testimony of the victims is of great importance, describing in detail the event that occurred and the appearance of the fraudulent courier.

Important information is provided by witnesses. Thus, three groups of witnesses were identified among the close relatives or acquaintances of the victims. The first group includes persons whose name the scammers presented themselves, the second group includes persons to whom the victim reported the incident, and the third group includes eyewitness witnesses. The testimony of other persons who communicated with the fraudulent courier, in particular taxi drivers, is also important.

The ideal traces in this category include the testimony of suspected couriers who give confessions and contribute to the detection of a crime.

When collecting ideal traces typical of frauds committed in the "Your relative is in trouble" way, it is fundamentally important to take into account the age characteristics of the victims of this type of crime. The investigator should pay special attention to the analysis of the facts on the basis of which a decision is made on the expediency of presenting the victim to identify the suspect by voice.

References
1. Sergeev, A. A. (1971). The essence and significance of the criminalistic characteristics of crimes. In Handbook for investigators. Moscow.
2. Pidusov, E. A. (2018). The trace pattern in the commission of fraudulent actions using mobile cellular communications. Crime in the field of information and telecommunication technologies: problems of prevention, disclosure and investigation of crimes, 1, 82-87.
3. Alekseev, S. A. (2016). The use of data on criminal skills in the investigation of fraud: abstract. dis. ... cand. Jurid. sciences: 12.00.12. Moscow.
4. Vinogradova, K. A. (2023). Investigations of fraud in the field of lending: abstract. ... cand. Jurid. sciences: 12.00.12. Moscow.
5. Nizaeva, S. R. (2017). Investigation of fraud in the sphere of residential real estate turnover (problems of theory and practice): author's abstract. dis. ... cand. Jurid. sciences: 12.00.12. Ufa.
6. Snezhkova, T. E. (2021). Features of the investigation of fraud in the field of state pension provision: abstract... cand. Jurid. sciences: 12.00.12. Rostov-on-Don.
7. Selyuzhitskaya, G. M. (2023). Methods of investigation of frauds committed against the elderly: abstract. ... cand. Jurid. Sciences: 5.1.4. Moscow.
8. Sycheva, A. V. (2022). Some questions of the criminalistic characteristics of "remote" frauds committed against the elderly. Bulletin of the Volgograd Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, 60(1), 135-140.
9. Revenko, N. I., & Vorobyova, P. V. (2023). Methods of committing fraud using information and telecommunication technologies. In Science and Technology – 2023: Collection of articles of the III International Scientific and Practical Conference (pp. 94-99). Petrozavodsk: ICNP NEW SCIENCE.
10. Malykhina, N. I., & Kuzmina, S. V. (2019). Traces as sources of information about a person who committed fraud on the Internet. The rule of law: theory and practice, 58(4), 132-139.
11. Kuznetsov, A. A. (2023). Circumstances to be established during the interrogation of a victim of fraud committed using cellular communications. In V. N. Chaplygina (Ed.), Criminal procedural and criminalistic problems of combating crime: a collection of scientific articles (pp. 89-91). Orel: ORYUI of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia named after V. V. Lukyanov.
12. Smagorinsky, B. P., & Sycheva, A.V. (2022). Specifics of the investigation of frauds committed against socially vulnerable persons in modern conditions. Scientific portal of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, 57(1), 101-105.
13. Yaroslavtseva, I. V., & Dorokhina, S. A. (2016). Critical thinking of elderly victims of fraudulent actions: theoretical and applied aspects of research. Proceedings of Irkutsk State University. The series «Psychology», 15, 60-71.
14. Bilyk, V. I., & Kuzmenko, D. V. (2020). Some features of the tactics of interrogation of the victim in the investigation of fraud committed against socially vulnerable categories of citizens. Scientific portal of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, 50(2), 78-84.
15. Aksenova, L. Y. (2016). Algorithm of actions of the investigator and the body of inquiry in the investigation of fraud using cellular communications. Bulletin of the Omsk Law Academy, 32(3), 80-84. doi:10.19073/2306-1340-2016-3-80-84
16. Belitsky, V. Yu. (2016). The subject of interrogation of the victim in cases of fraud committed under the scheme «Your relative got into trouble». In O. V. Kruglikova (Ed), Criminal procedural and criminalistic readings in Altai (pp. 16-19). Barnaul: Barnaul Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.
17. Valyulin, R. R., & Kozlov, V. V. (2023). Investigation of telephone frauds: a textbook. Barnaul: Law Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.

First Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

The subject of the research in the article submitted for review is, as its name implies, ideal traces as an element of the criminalistic characteristics of frauds committed in the way "Your relative got into trouble". The stated boundaries of the study are observed by the author. The methodology of the research is not disclosed in the text of the article. The relevance of the research topic chosen by the author is beyond doubt and is justified by him as follows: "When committing fraud against the elderly and elderly in the way "Your relative got into trouble", there remains a certain set of material and ideal traces, knowledge of which will help the investigator in the disclosure and investigation of this type of crime. The mechanism of trace formation is influenced by the method chosen by the fraudster to commit it and transfer funds to the victims [2, p. 85]. The considered method of fraud has recently become widespread [3, p. 95]. Scammers, as a rule, call a landline phone, find out the cell phone number from the victims, and keeping them in touch for an average of 1.5 – 2 hours, convince them to transfer the money stored in the house through a courier. Fraudsters convince victims that the money is needed to avoid bringing a close relative to criminal responsibility, or to carry out an urgent complex operation of a relative injured in an accident (grandson, daughter, son, daughter-in-law, etc.) or a close person, friend. During the investigation, as a rule, only the courier is detained, the identities of other members of the criminal group are not established. Difficulties in identifying the organizers and perpetrators of the criminal group are related to the fact that fraudsters make calls from subscriber numbers belonging to telephone containers located abroad when using IP telephony. In such an investigative situation, information about the mechanism of the committed crime can be obtained from ideal traces, which in criminology include the testimony of victims, witnesses, suspects, accused, experts, specialists." Additionally, the scientist needs to list the names of the leading experts who have been engaged in the study of the problems raised in the article, as well as reveal the degree of their study. The scientific novelty of the work is manifested in a number of the author's conclusions: "Victims in cases of this category indicate quite accurately: the time of receipt of the call; the duration of the conversation; the numbers of the identified phones; the content of the conversation with the scammers; the features of their voice, the manner of conversation; the names and positions they called; how they were addressed; who was present during the conversation; the circumstances of the traffic accident that happened to their close relative. The victims describe in detail what information they provided to the scammers; the amount of money transferred to couriers; the number of bills and their face value; the packaging of money; the behavior of couriers at the time of receiving money; their appearance, clothes; and also describe in detail their behavior after the couriers left, the content of telephone conversations with loved ones after transferring money to couriers, etc. Analysis interrogations of the victims allowed us to conclude that they do not have difficulties in describing the stolen cash and the way they are packaged"; "We believe that the production of an investigative action, presentation for identification by voice during the investigation of the type of fraud in question, is not always advisable for a number of reasons. The perception and memorization of sounds and speech is much more difficult than visual images. Moreover, due to age-related changes in analyzer systems, including the auditory analyzer, it is obvious that it is difficult for elderly and elderly people to operate with information coming through this analyzer. It is obvious that it is more likely to identify by voice the person with whom the victim communicated for a long time (relative, close friend, colleague, etc.). We believe that due to short-term communication, elderly and elderly people can remember in detail and in detail the features of the fraudster's speech only in some exceptional cases"; "... since accurate perception and memorization of speech features in most cases is quite a difficult task for the elderly and elderly, there is reason to believe that conducting an investigative action, voice identification should be applied selectively by the investigator in cases where there are grounds for this. In particular, if during the interrogation it was possible to establish that the victim paid attention and remembered certain features of the fraudster's speech, or if the victim has the ability to perceive sound information as a result, for example, of the professional activity of a musician. Otherwise, there is a high probability that it will not be possible to obtain reliable information during the investigative action, voice identification, or even an elderly victim may mistakenly not recognize in the voice of the fraudster the one who called him at the time of the crime," etc. Thus, the article makes a certain contribution to the development of domestic legal science and, of course, deserves the attention of potential readers. The scientific style of the research is fully sustained by the author. The structure of the work is quite logical. In the introductory part of the article, the scientist substantiates the relevance of his chosen research topic. In the main part of the work, the author examines ideal traces as an element of the criminalistic characteristics of frauds committed in the way "Your relative got into trouble", identifies a number of problems that arise in the process of their search, detection and fixation, and makes appropriate recommendations. The final part of the article contains conclusions based on the results of the study. The content of the article corresponds to its title, but is not without some formal drawbacks. So, the author writes: "When committing fraud against the elderly and elderly in the way of "Your relative is in trouble", there remains a certain set of material and ideal traces, the knowledge of which will help the investigator in the disclosure and investigation of this type of crime. The mechanism of trace formation is influenced by the method chosen by the fraudster to commit it and transfer funds to the victims [2, p. 85]." How do the elderly differ from the elderly? The scientist notes: "Scammers, as a rule, call a landline phone, find out the cell phone number from the victims, and keeping them in touch for an average of 1.5 – 2 hours, convince them to transfer the money stored in the house through a courier" - "Scammers, as a rule, call a landline phone, find out the number from the victims using a cell phone, and keeping them in touch for an average of 1.5 – 2 hours, they are persuaded to transfer the money stored in the house through a courier" (the comma highlighting the adverbial turnover, "during" is omitted). The author notes: "Despite the fact that the victims do not report the appearance of the callers..." - "Despite the fact that the victims cannot describe the appearance of the callers ..." (stylistic error). Thus, the article needs careful proofreading - spelling, punctuation, and stylistic errors occur in it (the list of typos and errors given in the review is not exhaustive!). The bibliography of the study is presented by 11 sources (scientific articles, textbook, manual). From a formal and factual point of view, this is enough. The author managed to reveal the research topic with the necessary depth and completeness. There is an appeal to opponents, both general and private (V. Y. Belitsky and others), and it is quite sufficient. The scientific discussion is conducted by the author correctly, the provisions of the work are justified to the proper extent and illustrated with examples.
There are conclusions based on the results of the study ("The analysis of the materials of criminal cases shows that the totality of ideal traces in the commission of fraud depends on the method used. At the initial stage of the investigation of frauds committed in the way "Your relative got into trouble", due to the fact that it is not possible to identify the persons who called the victim, the testimony of the victims is of great importance, describing in detail the event that occurred and the appearance of the fraudulent courier. Important information is also provided by witnesses, including three groups that we have identified. When collecting ideal traces typical of frauds committed in the "Your relative is in trouble" way, it is fundamentally important to take into account the age characteristics of the victims of this type of crime. The investigator should pay special attention to the analysis of the facts on the basis of which a decision is made on the expediency of presenting the victim to identify the suspect by voice"), they have the properties of reliability, validity, but do not reflect all the scientific achievements of the author of the article, and therefore need to be clarified and specified. The interest of the readership in the article submitted for review can be shown primarily by specialists in the field of criminal law, criminal procedure and criminalistics, provided that it is finalized: disclosure of the research methodology, additional justification of the relevance of its topic, clarification and concretization of conclusions based on the results of this study, elimination of violations in the design of the work.

Second Peer Review

Peer reviewers' evaluations remain confidential and are not disclosed to the public. Only external reviews, authorized for publication by the article's author(s), are made public. Typically, these final reviews are conducted after the manuscript's revision. Adhering to our double-blind review policy, the reviewer's identity is kept confidential.
The list of publisher reviewers can be found here.

The subject of the study. In the peer-reviewed article "Ideal traces as an element of the criminalistic characteristics of frauds committed in the way "Your relative got into trouble"", the subject of the study is the norms of law governing public relations in the field of disclosure and investigation of fraudulent actions committed in a recently widespread way. Research methodology. During the writing of the article, modern research methods were used: general scientific and private. The methodological apparatus consists of the following dialectical methods of scientific cognition: abstraction, induction, deduction, hypothesis, analogy, synthesis, and it is also possible to note the use of typology, classification, systematization and generalization. The relevance of research. The topic of the article seems relevant. As the author of the reviewed article correctly notes, such a method of fraud as "Your relative is in trouble" has recently become quite widespread. The methods of disclosure and investigation of new types of crimes must be constantly improved. The author refers to the criminalistic characteristics of this type of crime, examines typical traces, or the mechanism of trace formation. Indeed, legal regulation lags behind the rapid dynamics of public relations, which requires additional scientific research on this issue to make proposals for improving modern legislation and law enforcement practice. Scientific novelty. Without questioning the importance of previous scientific research, which served as the theoretical basis for this work, nevertheless, it can be noted that this article also presents noteworthy provisions that differ in scientific novelty, for example: "Ideal traces also include the testimony of witnesses (relatives and acquaintances of the victims), which can be divided into three groups. The first group is the relatives of the victim, who allegedly got into a traffic accident. The second group is the persons to whom the victim informed about the event that happened to him. When investigating this category of criminal cases, it may be the same person. The third group consists of people who were present during his conversation with the scammers. The testimony of all three groups of witnesses is important for establishing the mechanism of the crime and proving its event." Style, structure, content. In general, the article is written in a scientific style using special legal terminology. The content of the article corresponds to its title. The requirements for the volume of the article have been met. The material is presented consistently and clearly. The article is structured, consists of an introduction, the main part. As a comment, I would like to note that in conclusion it is necessary to formulate the results that the author achieved during the research. Due to the lack of a conclusion, the article has an incomplete appearance. Bibliography. The author has used a sufficient number of doctrinal sources, there are links to publications of recent years. All references to sources are designed in accordance with the requirements of the bibliographic GOST. Appeal to opponents. The article contains references to the opinions of other scientists. All requests are correct, with links to the source of the publication. Conclusions, the interest of the readership. The article submitted for review "Ideal traces as an element of the criminalistic characteristics of frauds committed in the way "Your relative got into trouble"" may be recommended for publication. The article is written on an urgent topic, is characterized by scientific novelty and has practical significance. A publication on this topic could be of interest to a readership, primarily specialists in the field of criminal law, criminal procedure law and criminalistics, and also could be useful for teachers and students of law schools and faculties.