Practical recommendations for improving the effectiveness of operational investigative activities aimed at detecting corruption-related crimes in the implementation of national projects

Popova Evgeniya Mikhailovna PhD in Economics Associate Professor; Department of Criminal Law and Criminology ; East Siberian Institute of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia 664074, Russia, Irkutsk region, Irkutsk, Lermontov str., 110 p_e_m_2013@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Milyuhin Andrei Sergeevich Head of the Department of Economic Security and Anti-Corruption ; Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia for the Trans-Baikal Territory 672039, Russia, Zabaikalsky Krai, Chita, Chkalova str., 3 p_e_m_2013@mail.ru

The relevance of the research and the degree of elaboration of the scientific problem. The achievement of national development goals through the financing of national projects is the implementation of a program-oriented method of budget planning. The drafting of the budget is the starting point of the budget process, which in addition to this stage includes the execution and approval of budget reports, as well as state (municipal) financial control. Financial control over the legality of budget spending is the responsibility of the Accounting Chamber of the Russian Federation, the control and accounting chambers of the subjects of the Russian Federation and municipalities, and the Federal Treasury. Internal affairs bodies are not subjects of state financial control, however, conducting verification measures at all stages of the budget process in order to identify economic and corruption crimes committed in the field of budget funds allocated for the implementation of national projects (programs) is within the scope of authority and priority tasks of operational and official activities of economic security and anti-corruption units The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia.

For statistical accounting of crime in the field of implementation of national projects, a separate form of federal statistical observation is provided under the code 465, which allows you to accumulate information about inspections initiated by internal affairs bodies, criminal cases initiated, the results of a preliminary investigation and the amount of material damage caused by crimes. In the period from 2019 to 2023, 42287 inspections were carried out, 97% of which were initiated by internal affairs bodies, primarily by economic security and anti-corruption units. The use of budgetary funds allocated for the implementation of national projects is characterized by high corruption risks. In 2019-2024, the total amount of financing for 15 national projects provided for by Decree of the President of the Russian Federation No. 204 dated 05/07/2018 "On National Goals and Strategic Objectives for the Development of the Russian Federation for the period up to 2024" exceeded 24.9 trillion rubles. The calculations made it possible to establish that 71% of the financial resources allocated from the state budget in 2019-2024 fall on five national projects: "Comprehensive plan for the modernization and expansion of the main infrastructure", "Demography", "Safe and high-quality roads", "Ecology" and "Healthcare" (see Fig. 1).

Fig. 1. Budget financing of national projects for 2019-2023, billion rubles.

Source: Electronic Budget. URL: https://budget.gov.ru/Национальные-проекты ?RegionID=45000000 (accessed 07.10.2024).

The analysis of statistical data showed that there is an increase in the effectiveness of inspections initiated by internal affairs bodies: if in 2019 every eleventh inspection ended with the initiation of a criminal case, then in 2023 – every fourth inspection. The authors carried out an additional calculation of indicators characterizing the activities of internal affairs bodies to protect budget funds in 2020-2023 in the context of individual national projects, on the basis of which problem areas were identified, indicating the need to improve the activities of operational units of the EB and PC to identify crimes related to the implementation of national projects.

– low efficiency of operational and procedural inspections for the most budget-intensive national projects: the ratio of the number of criminal cases initiated to the total number of inspections conducted is less than 10%;

– insufficient number of inspections initiated by the internal affairs bodies for the most budget-intensive projects: only three of the five most budget-intensive projects are in the group of national projects, which is characterized by the highest intensity of verification activities.

Improving the effectiveness of operational investigative activities to protect budget funds allocated for the implementation of national projects is the subject of research by researchers of educational organizations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. The articles published by Iskaliev R.F., Gorbacheva A.V., Yemelyanov V.E., Ilyina I.V., Komlev I.N., Pavlovich V.O., Namestnikova N.N., Ivanov P.I., Brazhin Yu.Yu., give general recommendations on the verification and documentation of crimes related to embezzlement of budgetary funds, and The procedure for detecting crimes in the implementation of a certain federal project is also proposed ^{[1, p. 155; 2, p. 156; 3, p. 97; 4, p. 131]}. While the academic literature does not pay due attention to the development of recommendations on the organization of an operational search aimed at detecting crimes in the field of implementation of national projects. The relevance of scientific research in this area of operational investigative activities is due to the fact that in recent years, more and more corruption-related crimes have been identified through an operational search initiated by employees. The practical significance of developing such recommendations lies in the fact that employees of operational units, especially in district territorial bodies, have difficulties finding primary information about signs of crimes committed within the framework of national projects.

Methodology, goals and objectives of the study. The research methodology includes methods of formal logic, such as induction, deduction, analysis, synthesis, comparison, statistical methods, concrete historical and formal legal methods.The purpose of this study is to develop an algorithm for the implementation of an operational search aimed at identifying corruption-related crimes in the implementation of national projects. To achieve this goal, the following tasks must be solved:

– calculate the criminological burden of crimes related to the implementation of national projects in the context of federal districts;

– to characterize the state of crime in the field of implementation of national projects through the prism of the following features: territorial feature, object of criminal law protection, subject of detection;

– based on the analysis of departmental statistics, identify problematic issues related to the detection of corruption-related crimes.

Analysis of the state of crime in the implementation of national projects for 2022-2023. In 2023, there is an increase in registered crimes related to the implementation of national projects by 20.8%, from 2,841 to 3,432. In the same year, 1,541 criminal cases were pre-investigated, which is 9.5% more than in 2022, of which 1,392 criminal cases were sent to court, which is 90.3% of the total number of pre-investigated crimes, and 4.4% more than in 2022. In addition, the criminological burden from crimes related to the implementation of national projects in the context of federal districts. In general, in the Russian Federation in 2023, the criminological burden from this category of crimes increased by 0.4 (see Table 1). An analysis of individual federal districts gives a more complete picture: in five federal districts there is an increase, the most significant in the Far Eastern and Southern Federal districts, in the Central and Northwestern Federal districts the level of criminological The burden on the population remained the same, in the Siberian Federal District it decreased by 1.3. The calculated coefficients of variation indicate the territorial heterogeneity of crime in the implementation of national projects: with a normative value of up to 33%, in 2022 the coefficient of variation was 48%, in 2023 it increased to 65%, which is explained by the dynamics of the indicator, which was characterized earlier.

Table 1

Criminological burden of crimes related to the implementation of national projects by federal districts

Source: compiled by the author on the basis of official data of the GIAC of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and Rosstat.

Continuing to study the state of crime in the field of implementation of national projects through the prism of various characteristics, we consider it quite natural, in addition to the territorial feature, to introduce into the analysis such a criterion as the object of criminal law protection. The specific object of a significant number of crimes committed in the field of implementation of national projects are the interests of the civil service, services in local governments, services in commercial and other organizations. These crimes form a group of corruption–related crimes, which in 2022 accounted for 53% of the total number of crimes related to the implementation of national projects, in 2023 - 44%. These figures were obtained using the following algorithm:

1) The criteria for classifying crimes as a group of corruption-related crimes have been defined. These criteria are unambiguously formulated in the Instruction of the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia No. 462/11, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia No. 2 dated 06/25/2024 "On the introduction of lists of articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation used in the formation of statistical reporting" (hereinafter – the Instruction of the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia): the presence of a special subject (notes to Article 201 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, Article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), the connection of the act with the official position of the subject of the crime, direct intent and selfish motive. In addition, the appendix to the Instruction of the Prosecutor General's Office of Russia contains a List No. 23 of corruption-related crimes, containing specific articles (paragraphs, parts) of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which provide for these crimes.

2) Of all crimes related to the implementation of national projects, corruption-related crimes are allocated to a separate group. On the basis of the statistical observation form with the code 465 GIAC of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, a collection on the Russian Federation is being formed, which contains summary information on crimes provided for by specific articles of the Special Part of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The authors selected 15 articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation included in the List No. 23, and calculated the total number of registered corruption-related crimes (see Table 2).

3) The ratio of the number of registered corruption-related crimes to the total number of registered crimes committed in the implementation of national projects has been found.

Table 2

Information on corruption-related crimes for 2022-2023.

Source: GIAC of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, statistical form "NATIONAL PROJECT" (code 465), collection "The state of crime in Russia for 2023".

Of particular research interest is the comparison of the dynamics of indicators characterizing a separate group of corruption crimes related to the implementation of national projects:

1) with all corruption crimes committed in Russia;

2) with all crimes committed in the field of implementation of national projects.

A comprehensive assessment of the state of corruption crime in the implementation of national projects as the most socially dangerous phenomenon requires not only determining the geography of crime, building dynamic series, but also choosing reference types of crime that will act as reference points, in our case, paragraphs 1 and 2.

1) Reference group – all corruption crimes committed in Russia. The direction of the dynamics of the indicators is identical. Compared with the group of corruption crimes committed in Russia as a whole, where the number of registered crimes increased by 3% in 2023, in the group of corruption crimes related to the implementation of national projects, their number remained almost unchanged. At the same time, in the group of corruption crimes related to the implementation of national projects, there is a more significant decrease in the number of pre-investigated crimes and criminal cases sent to court. Finally, the proportion of crimes whose criminal cases have been sent to court for crimes in the field of national projects is higher than for the group of corruption crimes committed in Russia as a whole.

2) Reference group – all crimes committed in the field of implementation of national projects. The direction of the dynamics of the indicators is the opposite. Compared with the group of crimes committed in the field of implementation of national projects, where the number of registered crimes increased by 20.8% in 2023, in the group of corruption crimes related to the implementation of national projects, their number remained almost unchanged. The number of pre-investigated crimes in the implementation of national projects increased by 9.5%, while in the group of corruption crimes there was a decrease of 8.2%. If in the group of corruption crimes the number of criminal cases sent to court decreased by 4.1%, then in the group of crimes committed in the field of implementation of national projects, on the contrary, increased by 15.1%.

Based on the above, the following conclusions can be drawn:

1) The number of registered corruption-related crimes related to the implementation of national projects has the lowest growth rates compared to the two reference groups of crimes. One of the reasons explaining such dynamics is the limited arsenal of relevant tools and mechanisms available to employees of operational units to identify this category of crimes, as well as the lack of understanding among employees of approaches to organizing both operational and procedural checks in this area.

2) The number of criminal cases of corruption-related crimes related to the implementation of national projects that have been sent to court, compared with the two reference groups of crimes, also has the lowest growth rates. Officials and persons performing managerial functions in a commercial and other organization, who are special subjects for corruption crimes, are well aware of the "inner kitchen" of the budget process, the procedure for concluding and executing state (municipal) contracts, therefore, they often manage to "cover their tracks" at the stage of procedural verification, which results in delaying the preliminary investigation.

According to Article 11 of Federal Law No. 144-FZ dated 08/12/1995 "On Operational Investigative Activities" and Article 89 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, the results of operational investigative activities (hereinafter referred to as ORD) can serve as a reason and basis for initiating a criminal case, be used for the preparation and implementation of investigative actions, as well as in proving criminal cases. The key point in the disclosure of corruption-related crimes is that the stage of procedural verification in accordance with the procedure provided for in Articles 144-145 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation is usually absent, employees of operational units strive to ensure that the accumulated results of the ORD are sufficient to make a decision on the initiation of a criminal case ^{[5, p. 24]}. After the initiation of a criminal case, the suspect is searched and detained under Article 91 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation, thereby ensuring his isolation in order to exclude contacts with interested persons and the possibility of hiding traces of a crime. In this connection, the question arises again about the need to increase the effectiveness and completeness of initiated operational checks, especially covert ones, as well as to improve the algorithm used in practice for documenting crimes related to the implementation of national projects, on which the successful legalization of the results of the ORDO directly depends ^{[6, p. 112]}.

In turn, improving the tools and methods used to identify corruption-related crimes related to the implementation of national projects requires knowledge of the structure of this category of crimes. The analysis showed that the crimes provided for in Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud), Article 285 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (abuse of official authority), Article 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (abuse of official authority), Article 290 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (taking a bribe) and Article 292 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (official forgery) accounted for 93% of all registered In 2022-2023, corruption-related crimes (see Figure 2). Fraud accounts for 70% of all corruption-related crimes registered in 2022-2023. This advantage is largely due to the latent nature and complexity of detecting bribery, as well as crimes related to abuse and abuse of official authority, including due to the limited labor and financial resources at the disposal of internal affairs agencies, which are necessary for documentary research and expertise.

Ageenkov A.A., Telkov A.V. in their work, identify one of the reasons for the low effectiveness of operational checks aimed at detecting crimes under Articles 285 and 286 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ^{[7, p. 70]}. According to the law enforcement practice of a number of subjects of the Russian Federation, officials sign an act of completed works (COP-2) and a certificate of the cost of completed works (COP-3) at the end of the financial year, justifying this by saying that otherwise they will have to return undeveloped funds to the budget. Even if there are signs of abuse or abuse of official authority in the actions of officials, the investigative authorities refuse to initiate criminal proceedings on the grounds provided for in paragraph 2 of Part 1 of Article 24 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation, due to the absence of a significant violation of the legitimate interests of society and the state (work continues and can be completed during the preliminary investigation).

Fig. 2. The structure of crimes related to the implementation of national projects registered in 2022-2023.

Source: GIAC of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, statistical form "NATIONAL PROJECT" (code 465).

The analysis of court decisions and scientific publications allowed us to conclude that a significant array of crimes qualified under Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation are embezzlement of budget funds through the supply of goods, provision of services, performance of work in a smaller volume compared to that provided for by a state (municipal) contract, and, accordingly, provision to state bodies or local self-government bodies of reports containing deliberately false information ^{[8, p. 124]}. In particular, in December 2023, the Leninsky District Court of Saransk of the Republic of Mordovia issued a guilty verdict against the director of the non–profit organization Business Support and Development Fund "Factory of Entrepreneurship" (hereinafter referred to as the Factory of Entrepreneurship) for committing a crime under Part 4 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud committed by a person using his official position, on a particularly large scale).

The Enterprise Factory and the micro-credit company "Entrepreneurship Support Fund of the Republic of Mordovia", which implements the regional project "Acceleration of small and medium-sized businesses" in the Republic of Mordovia as part of the activities of the national project "Small and Medium-sized Entrepreneurship and support for entrepreneurial initiative", signed an agreement No. 21 dated 10/20/2020 for the provision of services for conducting a training program for active entrepreneurs. According to the terms of reference, the Enterprise Factory was supposed to organize training for at least 150 SMEs, the cost of which under the contract was 2.57 million rubles. As follows from the materials of the criminal case, this amount was transferred in full to the settlement account of the Enterprise Factory. At the same time, 2.48 million rubles were obtained illegally, since in fact only six entrepreneurs were trained, while the director of the Entrepreneurship Factory provided the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Entrepreneurship of the Republic of Mordovia with a report on the implementation of the program with deliberately false information, according to which 156 persons participated in the training program. The property damage caused was compensated in full. If we talk in general about this group of crimes (Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), then according to 2023, the amount of material damage in completed and suspended criminal cases exceeded 3.5 billion rubles, 84% of the established amount of damage was compensated by seizure of property, seizure of property, money, valuables, voluntary repayment.

According to the applied research methodology, the following features were selected to study the state of crime in the implementation of national projects: territorial feature, object of criminal law protection and subject of detection. The first two signs were discussed above, now it's time to answer the question of who and how identifies crimes related to the implementation of national projects. The main subject of detecting crimes related to the implementation of national projects is the internal affairs bodies. According to the GIAC of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, 2,841 crimes were registered in 2022, 3,432 crimes in 2023, 78% of the registered crimes were identified by employees of internal affairs bodies, primarily by EB and PC units. At the same time, 80% of all registered crimes identified by employees of the internal affairs bodies were revealed as a result of operational inspections initiated by the employees themselves. This statistical fact is an additional confirmation that operational checks initiated by employees, rather than procedural checks, which are carried out based on reports of crimes received from third parties, play a key role in identifying crimes committed in the field of implementation of national projects.

Recommendations on improving the effectiveness of operational inspections initiated by employees of internal affairs agencies to identify crimes in the implementation of national projects. The latent nature of corruption-related crimes related to the implementation of national projects justifies the special importance of operational inspections initiated, first of all, by employees of the EB and PC. This thesis is confirmed both by this study and by the scientific and practical research of other authors working in the Ministry of Internal Affairs system ^{[9, p. 154; 10, p. 192]}. In addition, the results of the above analysis show that there are difficulties in identifying crimes under Articles 285, 286 and 292 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, their share in the total number of corruption-related crimes is less than 6%. There is another problem that needs to be solved: operational investigative measures are often carried out after the expiration of the municipal contract and the transfer of funds to the contractor, that is, when budget funds are stolen, and therefore it is necessary to intensify operational investigative activities at the initial stage of budget disbursement. Therefore, we have developed a universal algorithm for conducting an operational search to identify crimes under Articles 285, 286 and 292 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which are committed during capital construction and construction and installation works. The universal nature of the algorithm lies in the absence of reference to the specifics of a specific national project. The proposed algorithm is adapted to different stages of the development of federal budget funds: the stage of competitive procedures and the stage of execution of the municipal contract (see Table 3).

The legal basis for carrying out operational investigative measures is paragraph 2 of Part 1 of Article 7 of the Federal Law "On ORDO". According to the commentary to the federal law published by the Academy of Management of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, the source of information that is the basis for conducting an OPM may be not only the messages of persons providing confidential assistance, but also the proactive search work of the bodies carrying out the OPM ^{[11, p. 112]}. In turn, the operational search, consisting in the search for primary information about the signs of a crime, is one of the stages of operational investigative activity, which, in accordance with Article 1 of the Federal Law "On the ORDO", is carried out through the conduct of an ORM. According to Part 1 of Article 14 of the Federal Law on "ORD", the bodies implementing ORD are obliged to take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of society and the state, in relation to national projects, these measures consist in protecting budget funds allocated to achieve national development goals. It follows from this that conducting simple ORMs that do not require departmental or judicial authorization, as well as do not violate the rights and legitimate interests of individuals and legal entities, is legitimate to obtain primary information about the signs of a crime being prepared, committed or committed ^{[12, p. 30]}.

Table 3

An algorithm for the implementation of an operational search aimed at identifying corruption-related crimes in the implementation of national projects

Source: compiled by the authors.

As noted above, officials of municipal administrations sign acts of completed works, obviously having information that the work has not been completed in full. After receiving primary information about the signs of a crime under Articles 285, 286 or 292 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation through an operational search, it is necessary to ensure their proper verification. In particular, it is recommended to conduct a survey of a specialist, in order to establish the signs of a crime at the stage of pre-investigation verification, it is sufficient to obtain the opinion of a specialist, which can be reflected both in a separate certificate signed by a specialist and in the protocol of the specialist's survey reflecting his conclusions, calculations and analysis, with the attachment of a photo table, samples of materials, etc.

Specialists of the specified profile can be at enterprises, construction organizations and institutions, technical inventory bodies located on the territory of operational services, including persons from among teachers of educational institutions of a technical bias. In accordance with the norms of Federal Law No. 3 dated 07.02.2011 "On the Police", the specified service may be voluntarily and gratuitously provided to the police authorities upon sending an appropriate request or a working meeting with representatives of these organizations for the possibility of assistance.

The proposed recommendations are of practical value, since, as the results of the study of the operational and official activities of the divisions of territorial bodies at the district level have shown, there are problematic issues. Due to the lack of specialized financial or economic education, work experience in the contract system in the field of procurement of goods, works, services for state and municipal needs, employees of operational units have difficulties identifying national projects implemented in the operational service area, understanding how to start an operational audit, where to get information about financing, at what stage of the development of budgetary funds can a crime be committed. The application of the developed algorithm for the implementation of an operational search will increase not only the number of inspections initiated by internal affairs bodies, but also their effectiveness in terms of identifying corruption-related crimes committed in the implementation of national projects.