Specific Features of Protection Against Computer-Aided Criminal Infringements on Cashless (Electronic) Funds in Contemporary Criminal Legislations of Belarus and Russia

Abstract

The dominance of a distance form of interactions in modern conditions resulted in an increase in operations with cashless (electronic) funds, which led to a growth of the number of acquisitive cybercrimes. The author examines criminal law measures of protecting cashless (electronic) funds against criminal infringements in the cybersphere and conducts legal analysis of regulations on acquisitive crimes against property and information security reflected in criminal legislations of Belarus and Russia. Special attention is paid to the characteristic features of protection measures against acquisitive cybercrimes involving cashless (electronic) funds in modern criminal legislations of Belarus and Russia. Current Belarus legislation differentiates criminal liability using unified criteria (method and property size) within the same corpus delicti of three crimes in Ch. 24 and 31 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Belarus. In the Russian legislation, the differentiation of criminal liability is based on three criteria (size, type of money or method) within five corpora delicti in Ch. 21 and 28 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. The author specifically states that the use of such a differentiation approach in determining liability for online theft of cashless money in the norms of Russian criminal law leads, firstly, to considerable difficulties in determining the forms and specific criteria of such theft and, secondly, to the application of more (or less) severe measures of punishment for identical crimes. Using a detailed comparative analysis of modern criminal legislations of Belarus and Russia regarding online criminal infringements against cashless (electronic) money, the author draws a conclusion on the use of regulations in the Russian law that would make it possible to fully take into account various specific features of online infringements on cashless (electronic) money and to apply unified criteria for the differentiation of criminal liability within one corpus delicti, for example, in the form of theft in the sphere of computer information whose modus operandi is thoroughly described in one of the norms on computer crimes in Art. 159.6 of the Criminal Code of Russia.