Various Approaches to Assessing the Methods of Stealing Cashless Money in the Modern Information Society

Abstract

A wide spread of various illegal methods of stealing cashless funds using modern information technologies makes it necessary to search for more advanced approaches to assessing such actions. Specialists examine different approaches to determining methods of theft in the information environment and analyze the opinions of scholars presented in the doctrine of criminal law, as well as legislative and court statutes adopted during the whole period that the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation has been in force (from 1997 to 2020). The authors of the article pay special attention to the approaches of assessing the widespread methods of stealing cashless money in the theory, legislative sphere and practice. It is noted that current criminal legislation reflects a new approach to assessing theft in the information environment, developed on the basis of modern theory and practice. The authors point out that in modern criminal law theory there are three main trends in assessing the methods of stealing cashless money in the information environment. They are: criminalization of the new form of theft, new types of crimes in Ch. 21 or 28 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation; viewing this theft as a variety of traditional forms of theft and other acquisitive crimes against property; application of the existing norms of traditional crimes in Ch. 21 and 28 of the CC of the RF. The authors also note that in the period following the adoption of criminal legislation, the illegal acquisition of cashless funds in the information environment has been assessed differently: as a type of traditional theft by deceit in the form of fraud; as separate types of fraud depending on the method; as separate types of fraud depending on the method and theft. The authors conduct a detailed analysis of the contents of new criminal law norms and the developed theoretical (court) statutes, identify their positive and negative features, and present their own understanding of the effectiveness of the new approach to assessing online theft of cashless money incorporated in current criminal legislation.