Organized cybercrime in Ukraine: problems of formation of official statistics and its analysis

Abstract

The article analyzes the types, forms and content of statistical reporting that reflects the state and structure of cybercrime in Ukraine. Ways to interpret statistical information and to use its capabilities in preventing and combating cybercrime are identified. The shortcomings of the structure of official statistical data, namely unsystematic character, inconsistency and incoherence of their formation, are generalized and revealed. It is noted that the national and international legislation lacks a generally accepted definition of cybercrime so far, and therefore a single approach to defining the grounds for classifying illegal acts as such crimes. The reports were developed without considering further analysis of cybercrime. And while the report of the National Police of Ukraine contains data on a number of criminal offenses that can be attributed to cybercrime, the official statistical reports prepared by the Office of the Prosecutor General of Ukraine and the State Judicial Administration of Ukraine, except for Chapter XVI of the Criminal Code, are missing the mentioned data. Therefore, official statistics, which fully and accurately reflect the state and structure of cybercrime cannot be introduced today. It is possible to analyze only the dynamics of this type of crime, the structure of crime on the basis of recorded crimes. The number of criminal offenses under the articles of chap. XVI of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, is growing unevenly, and this growth in the last 4 years is insignificant. The share of these criminal offenses is growing more dynamically. But their share of the total crime rate in Ukraine today is insignificant and is less than one percent - in 2020 0.69. In the first quarter of 2021, employees of cyber police units of the National Police of Ukraine, for the first time detected 4 criminal offenses under Art. 255 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (“Creation of a criminal organization”). During 2013 –2010, 112 persons were found to have committed criminal offenses of this category as part of a group, 16 of them as part of an organized group. Also during this period, 171 persons who committed criminal offenses in the group in previous years were identified, including 68 in the organized group. The number of convicted persons who committed criminal offenses in the group during this period is 64, 9 of them committed crimes in an organized group.