On the basis of retrospective analysis of the Russian legislation (pre-revolutionary, Soviet and modern) and doctrine the author infers essential characteristics of deception (fraud) in law. In order to optimize the interaction of private and public law, as well as the application of civil and criminal law the author carries out a comparison of the fraudulent acts under Article 179 of the Civil Code and Article 165 of the Criminal Code. Alongside with current legislation the author uses judicial acts and scientific research. Special attention is given to the parties of legal relations, including the concepts of "owner" and "another property owner" in civil and criminal law; the grounds of liability, including the fact of injury causation; forms of causing property damage by deception; the notion of "property" in civil and criminal law; delimitation of deception and delusion. As a result, the author reveals similarity of all elements of offences in part of wrongfulness, subjective side of the crime, the intersection of concepts in civil and criminal law; trends in the development of such legislation as narrowing the range of elements in Article 179 of the Civil Code, decriminalization of a number of elements that were previously enshrined in Article 165 of the Criminal Code.