Blackmail - what is it, how to behave with a blackmailer

Blackmail is a type of threat directed at a person in order to obtain from him any benefits, both material and other. The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation does not include blackmail as a separate article. This type of offense falls under the provisions of Article 163 “Extortion”.

As a rule, blackmail is committed with the aim of seizing someone else's property or property rights. A criminal person deliberately violates the law, and in order to intimidate his victim and force her to act in his own interests, he threatens her.

At the same time, the article for blackmail and extortion directly specifies the types of such threats applied to the injured party:

• Threat of violence against the victim;
• Threat of damage or destruction of property belonging to the victim;
• Threats to disseminate confidential information or slander that could harm the victim or his family.

The criminal may actually know some information or make it up for profit. In any case, the threats must be significant for the victim.

In order for such actions to be recognized as a criminal offense, all elements of the offense must be present. The crime will be considered completed after the threatening information is communicated directly to the victim. In this case, the further actions of the victim will not have any significance for qualification. He can fulfill the criminal's demands or refuse him. This will not be important for the investigation.

Types of blackmail

In theory, it is customary to distinguish several types of blackmail depending on the direction of the criminal act. Blackmail is usually divided according to the type of impact on the victim as follows:

• Psychological blackmail is manipulation that is not associated with the use of real violence. These are, as a rule, threats related to the dissemination of intimate photographs or information discrediting a person’s reputation.
• Physical blackmail is manipulation associated with the threat of actual use of violence. The criminal may tell the victim that if she does not give him the apartment or car, he will kill or hit her.

With regard to the qualification of a crime under Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the court assigns different amounts of punishment. Moreover, the size directly depends on the type of blackmail. So, blackmail can be carried out in several forms:

• Blackmail committed by conspiracy by a group of persons;
• Blackmail with violence;
• Blackmail causing grievous harm to the victim’s health;
• Blackmail on a large or especially large scale.

A large amount of damage for extortion is considered to be 250 thousand rubles, and an especially large amount is one million. The more sophisticated and socially dangerous the crime is committed, the longer the sentence will be assigned to the guilty person to serve.

Composition of the crime under the article “Extortion”

The elements of the crime under Article 163 of the Criminal Code of Russia are:

1. The object of extortion is property values, property relations and attacks on dignity, honor, health, and other legitimate interests and rights. In the resolution of the Plenum of the Russian Armed Forces dated December 17, 2015. No56 states that when committing extortion, the criminal seeks the transfer of property values ​​or rights to it for himself personally or for other citizens. Article 163 of the Russian Criminal Code can be found in “Crimes against property (Section 8, Chapter 21).
2. The subject of extortion, according to Article 163 of the Criminal Code of Russia, are citizens who are 14 years of age or older. The age at which liability begins is also indicated in the general part of the Criminal Code of Russia, Article 20 (Part 2).
3. The objective side of this type of criminal act is the requirement to transfer property values, and it is important for the criminal to make their transfer appear voluntary. The objective side requires evidence, which is quite difficult to collect.
4. The subjective side is the intent to seize property values ​​or rights to it.

In the resolution of the Plenum of the Russian Armed Forces dated December 17, 2015. No56, paragraph 7 states that the case of extortion is considered completed from the moment a demand is presented to the victim, accompanied by a threat (Article 163, Part 1 of the Criminal Code of Russia). In addition, failure to comply or compliance with the demands of the criminal by the victim does not have any impact on the legal assessment of the crime.

In other words, if a demand is made, accompanied by a threat, the criminal act is considered completed, and criminal liability arises for it without any reservations.

If for an attempt to commit any other type of crime the penalty is 3⁄4, then under the article for extortion of money a reduced sentence should not be expected. It should be noted that there is simply no attempt in extortion.

Extortion with a threat should be perceived as real violence on a par with such serious crimes as causing serious harm to health, murder, etc. A person from whom property values ​​are extorted under threat should always fear that the extortionist may take active action at any moment. At the same time, you should not pay attention to when the criminal promises to move on to active illegal actions - right today or the day after tomorrow.

The subject of extortion under Article 163 according to Article 163 of the Criminal Code of Russia is:

• property owned by the victim on the basis of ownership, rent, leasing, etc.;
• household appliances, clothing and other things (phones, PCs, office equipment, cameras, etc.);
• cash;
• non-cash money, bank cards and access to them;
• securities of any kind;
• property rights of any kind;
• any actions that do not directly lead to the loss of property (provision of services, performance of work, coercion to fulfill certain obligations, coercion to repay debts, etc.).

Blackmail on the Internet

The global Internet is often used as an ideal place for blackmail. Due to the fact that anonymous correspondence can be freely conducted on the Internet, criminals hope to escape justice. However, everything is not so simple. Crimes on the Internet are punished in the same way as illegal acts committed in real life.

Today the Internet is under the control of law enforcement agencies. If you wish, you can always find out from which IP address the threatening messages were sent. To ensure that accusations against criminals on the Internet are not unfounded, you need to stock up on evidence. To do this, simply save screenshots of threatening messages.

The Internet is often used by minors and poorly trained offenders. In fact, they do not and cannot have any confidential data concerning you, but simply rely on the inexperience of users. Online scammers most often demand the transfer of funds for charitable reasons or under the threat of slander.

We prove the fact of blackmail

If you are nevertheless faced with the use of illegal actions against you in the form of blackmail, you need to put aside panic and approach this issue wisely.

First of all, you need to find out what the information is that they are going to blackmail you with. Moreover, without any written evidence, it will be difficult for the blackmailer to convince others of the plausibility of these facts, so it is worth sensibly assessing the damage that the dissemination of this information may cause to you.

In any case, law enforcement agencies must be notified of the occurrence of such a situation and a statement must be filed with the police, which will initiate an investigation into the crime. However, the investigation must present facts confirming that this illegal action took place.

Such evidence may be a recording of a telephone conversation in which you are threatened, a letter (if the blackmail took place by email, you need to print out the correspondence), photo and video materials, testimony of witnesses, health certificates if physical harm was caused, and so on. can confirm the presence of threats against you.

The most important thing in such a situation is not to be afraid that the information with which you are being blackmailed will be disclosed. After all, it is unknown what lengths a criminal can go to in order to force you to commit any actions that satisfy him.

Read about insurance fraud schemes.

And here about fraud in the banking sector.

It is useful to know “How the liquidation of a credit institution occurs.”

How to deal with a blackmailer?

Not always the threats of blackmailers are truly dangerous and have any real possibility of influencing the victim. Often such threats are just words that have nothing behind them. Do not panic when receiving threats from suspicious individuals. The main thing is to adhere to the correct tactics of communicating with such people.

So, the algorithm for interacting with a blackmailer can be described as follows:

• Do not show him your weakness and fear of his threats;
• Protect yourself as much as possible from communicating with suspicious individuals;
• Openly tell blackmailers that you know the law and know what they are facing;
• Save all correspondence and record all conversations;
• Contact the police and ask the officers to confirm that they accepted your application.

Blackmail is often limited to psychological manipulation and influence. The winner in such a fight is always the one who is stronger in spirit and will. Law enforcement agencies often do not want to investigate such cases and give formal replies to them. Always, if such an unfounded reply is received, the victim can forward complaints about the work of employees to higher authorities - the chief of police or the prosecutor's office. It would be good if you have witnesses who saw or heard the threats coming towards you. Their testimony can play into your hands when proving extortion or blackmail to the police and the court.

Psychological blackmail

Parents dissatisfied with a child's behavior, a couple going through a difficult breakup, an employer demanding more performance from his employee - all these are potential situations for the use of psychological violence. Emotional blackmail is a type of manipulation that is most often used by loved ones in order to get for themselves what they need and to achieve more comfortable conditions. This type of threat is not a criminal act and is not regulated in any way by law, so you need to deal with the blackmailer yourself:

• First you need to understand that if you give in once, there is a high probability of encountering a blackmailer again. By accepting his terms, we only help him improve his skills.
• Following the blackmailer’s lead, a person lowers his sense of self-worth, which will adversely affect his mental state.
• Under no circumstances should you enter into an emotional conflict with a blackmailer or take his threats to heart. You need to treat him evenly and unemotionally, keeping your distance.
• Stop being afraid of the blackmailer’s threats, but, on the contrary, understand what motivates him and why he does it, understand the essence of his behavior and push him in the right direction to get out of the conflict situation, looking for other sources of satisfying his desires.

Punishment for blackmail (Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation)

Sanctions for extortion and blackmail are varied. The exact amount of punishment is determined by the judge based on the circumstances of the case and the personality of the accused. Ordinary extortion without any aggravating circumstances is punishable by:

• Forced labor or restriction of freedom of the defendant for up to 4 years;
• Arrest for up to six months;
• Real imprisonment up to 4 years.

In addition to the main type of punishment, an additional one may be applied in the form of a fine of up to 80 thousand rubles. If extortion is committed by a group of people with harm to the health of the victim or on a particularly large scale, the perpetrators may end up in jail for 15 years. The fine can easily increase to 1 million rubles.

A suspended sentence may be imposed if the defendant has not previously been prosecuted.

Blackmail and extortion are considered dangerous types of crime. They threaten not only public safety as a whole, but also the life and health of each individual person, as well as the safety of his property. It should also be noted that blackmail not only affects the material and physical components of human relationships, but also captures the moral and ethical side of communication. Threats are often of a moral nature in order to have a greater impact on a person’s consciousness and psychology.

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What is blackmail: general provisions

The Criminal Code of the Russian Federation does not have a separate article on blackmail, and therefore blackmail is regarded as a method of committing another crime.
Most often, blackmail is expressed: 1. A threat to the life and health of the victim or his loved ones;

2. Publication of compromising materials;

3. Other actions undesirable for the victim, compromising his honor or dignity, as well as causing harm to life and health.

According to judicial practice, blackmail is a method of committing another crime.

Blackmail and extortion are often mistakenly combined into one crime. However, Extortion should be identified as a separate crime, the signs of which are:

· Request from a citizen for funds, material resources;

· Forcing a person to commit undesirable actions;

· Threat of violence, causing harm to the health of a citizen or members of his family;

· Causing damage to property;

· Distribution of materials discrediting the honor or business reputation of a person.

Extortion is regulated by Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. However, if a person is required to pay money that was taken on credit or against a receipt, then the crime will be qualified as arbitrariness under Article 330. The only thing that the perpetrator can be accused of is exceeding his rights, since he needed to file a claim to collect the debt . The use of physical force and psychological pressure is unacceptable.

Blackmail in the Criminal Code

There is no special article for blackmail in the Criminal Code; as such, blackmail is not a separate crime and is most often considered by lawyers under Article 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation “Extortion”.

However, if extortion is an illegal way to demand money from a victim, then blackmail in legal practice is defined as a method of committing another crime, in most cases extortion, which is expressed in the form of a threat to commit any undesirable actions for the blackmailed person that are not related to threats of violence or murder.

That is, if a person is threatened with beating or murder, this cannot be considered blackmail; it falls under the corresponding article of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on threats.

Thus, legally, blackmail is equivalent to extortion. The punishment for this offense can be imprisonment for a term of up to four years and a fine of up to 80 thousand rubles if there are no aggravating circumstances, but if they exist, then the punishment can be from seven to fifteen years and a fine of up to a million rubles .

Types of extortion. Blackmailer-extortionist - who is he?

Any demand for property or money from a person in exchange for some service or concealment of a secret is regarded as a crime. And this must be remembered by both the extortionist and the victim: any physical blackmail is an article.

As criminal practice shows, the most common type in our country is school-student extortion with a specific contingent - schoolchildren and young people under 25 years of age. As a rule, this is the most “harmless” type of blackmail.

Crimes of this type are committed by both individuals and groups of individuals. Moreover, due to their age, schoolchildren act in most cases as a group, while students prefer an individual form of committing a crime. This is due to the fact that the schoolboy blackmailer, due to his immaturity and desire for self-affirmation, needs psychological support from his peers.

Most often, extortionists are “difficult teenagers”, children from disadvantaged families, many of whom are registered with law enforcement agencies and have poor performance in school. For such blackmail, the article of the Criminal Code provides for punishment in the form of a fine in the amount of 80,000 rubles or imprisonment for up to 4 years, as well as forced labor for up to 4 years with or without restriction of freedom for up to 2 years, or arrest for up to 6 months.

This type of blackmail, as a rule, does not include causing physical harm to the victim, although student extortion is sometimes characterized by causing minor or severe harm to the victim’s health while intoxicated.

The second type is household. A person of any status and income can become an extortionist here. The motive in this case is not only self-interest and greed, but also personal grievances. The criminal in domestic extortion acts through blackmail. The threat is usually communicated verbally, sometimes by telephone or electronic communications. The written form is used extremely rarely. Threats of physical violence are most often used to manipulate the victim.

The third type is racketeering. It has a direct connection with the world of business and the market economy and was especially popular in our country during perestroika. Committed, as a rule, by an organized group of people, it is of the most aggressive nature, accompanied by infliction of serious harm to the victim’s health.

The fourth type is official. This type of crime is committed by a person with a high status position and certain regalia. This mainly refers to bribery.