Bank fraud is a fairly common phenomenon in modern Russia, where lending to the population is developing at a rapid pace. It is generally accepted that the bank becomes the victim of such scams. There are quite high non-repayments on loans taken out and other fraudulent activities on the part of unscrupulous borrowers. This is not entirely true. Bank employees quite cleverly make money from citizens, manipulating the services they impose, and sometimes using outright fraudulent schemes aimed at personal enrichment.
It is immediately necessary to clarify that it is very difficult to determine such illegal actions, so citizens need to have a clear idea of what they can encounter when using banking services.
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Criminal Code of the Russian Federation of June 13, 1996 N 63-FZ
A Brief Theory of Deception
What makes bank employees commit illegal acts?
At first glance, clerks should be vitally interested in the well-being and prosperity of their organization, which not only raises their personal status, but also has a positive effect on wages. This is not entirely true. It is the increase in salary that most often becomes the cause of fraud. The salary of a loan specialist at any bank consists of two parts: salary and bonuses. The monthly premium directly depends on the number of concluded agreements for the issuance of targeted loans. In an effort to increase the premium, such specialists themselves advise the potential client to indicate deliberately false data in the questionnaire: non-existent property or a higher level of income. As a result, a person receives an amount that he cannot physically repay, which often leads to troubles with collection agencies. The credit manager receives a bonus, the bank suffers losses.
Such schemes are exposed by the internal security service, but are far from the only cases of fraud.
Responsibility
Punishment for committing fraud in the banking sector is regulated by Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and implies liability for:
- without qualifying characteristics (Part 1) - entailing a fine of up to 120 thousand rubles or in the amount of earnings or other income for a period of up to 1 year, or compulsory work for up to 360 hours, or corrective labor for up to 1 year, or restriction of freedom for up to 2 years , or forced labor for up to 2 years, or arrest for up to 4 months, or imprisonment for up to 2 years;
- with qualifying characteristics (parts 2-7) - entailing a fine of up to 500 thousand rubles or in the amount of earnings or other income for a period of 1 to 3 years, or forced labor for up to 5 years with restriction of freedom for up to 2 years or without it, or imprisonment for a term of up to 6 years with a fine of up to 80 thousand rubles or in the amount of earnings or other income for a period of up to 6 months or without it and with or without restriction of freedom for a term of up to 1.5 years.
Responsibility for especially large-scale crimes or their commission by an organized group - entailing imprisonment for a term of up to 10 years with a fine of up to 1 million rubles or in the amount of earnings or other income for a period of up to 3 years or without it and with restriction of freedom for a term of up to 2 years or without him.
Common types of bank fraud
In most cases, the bank deceives its clients in a completely legal way, simply by imposing additional services, or, taking advantage of the borrower’s legal illiteracy, includes hidden conditions in the body. Such pitfalls are written in small print and usually simply do not attract attention.
Fraud when applying for a loan
The most common “legal” fraud schemes look like this:
- Insurance. When applying for a loan, a person is informed that insurance is a mandatory procedure and is returned to the client after repayment of the loan. Note that insurance is an imposed service, without which some banks simply refuse to issue a loan. In this case, the insurance amount is usually included in the loan body, increasing the interest rate proportionally. We would like to add that even with early repayment of all obligations, the insurance is not returned to the client, and it is almost impossible to prove its imposition through the court.
- Agreement conditions. This is a kind of information blockade when the borrower is simply not told all the nuances of lending. In this case, additional clauses are written in fine print or the bank directly notifies that it reserves the right to change the terms of the agreement unilaterally. As a result, a person receives a completely different banking product with higher interest rates. Here everything is drawn up within the framework of the law, because the contract must be carefully studied before signing. However, in essence, this is a veiled fraud for which one cannot be held accountable.
In addition, a loan can be issued to a person without his knowledge at all. This is done as follows:
- concluding an agreement based on found or stolen documents;
- registration of an additional loan based on the client’s data provided;
- signing by the borrower of a loan agreement with changed details.
Important: To avoid ending up in a similar situation, the loan agreement must be shown to a qualified lawyer before signing.
Deposit fraud
Any financial institutions provide services for storing funds of individuals and legal entities in current or savings accounts. Here you can encounter the following types of offenses:
- the funds in custody are involved in risky financial transactions, the organization is declared bankrupt, and depositors receive insurance, which is usually lower than the actual amount of the deposit;
- the funds are in the accounts of a bank that does not have a license for depositary storage of funds, therefore, after bankruptcy there is no longer any need to count on insurance;
- the depositor has an agreement with the bank employee, so he opens an account without actually depositing funds, after which the actual amount is withdrawn.
Not all of the described schemes can be classified as fraud, however, the result is the same: depositors lose money due to the fault of the bank.
Play for big
Here we will talk about a grandiose scam, which is carefully planned by a group of people and by prior conspiracy.
The deception of citizens lies in the fact that a new banking organization is opening in the region, attracting depositors and partners with bright advertising and favorable conditions for cooperation in all areas. When the planned amount accumulates in the accounts of such a bank, the organization simply disappears. The legal address turns out to be fictitious, and there is no one to file claims for refund.
Another way to carry out large-scale financial fraud is to issue large cash loans to non-existent persons.
Commentary to Art. 159.1 Criminal Code
1. The corpus delicti is characterized by a special method of committing a crime - deception by providing a bank or other creditor with knowingly false and (or) unreliable information. In contrast to the corpus delicti provided for in Art. 176 of the Criminal Code, the intent to steal funds arises in this case before the receipt of the loan.
2. If the encroachment was carried out on the funds of different owners (for example, several banks), then provided that the act was covered by a single intent, the fact that the damage was caused to several different owners (regardless of whether they are individuals and (or) legal entities) does not affect the assessment of the act as a single ongoing crime.
If the role of the borrower when concluding a loan agreement masking fraud is not a guilty individual, but a legal entity that is either headed by the specified individual or is authorized to represent this organization in relations with counterparties, then the act can also be qualified under the commented article. At the same time, if a legal entity acting as a borrower, headed by the culprit, was either created exclusively for carrying out criminal activities, including similar thefts, or at the time of committing the fraud was not engaged in any legal activity, but was used only as a means of committing a crime, the act should be qualify according to the general norm of Art. 159 of the Criminal Code. It is also necessary to qualify cases of fraud if the legal entity was absent (not registered or liquidated), and the perpetrator only used deliberately forged documents containing details of a non-existent organization when submitting to the creditor.
Fraud in cash management
Here we are talking about openly illegal actions on the part of bank employees, however, they can be very difficult to prove. For example:
- Pulling banknotes from a stack. An ordinary sleight of hand works when 1-2 bills are quietly removed from a wad of money given to the client. The shortage is discovered only at home, when it is almost impossible to prove the fact of deception.
- Substitution. Sometimes cashiers add counterfeit money to real money. People are accustomed to believing that all banknotes in banks are checked for authenticity. When a forgery is discovered, it is impossible to prove that this particular bill was received at the bank.
- Fraud with personal account. A few investors know the status of their account down to the last penny. Therefore, minor write-offs usually go unnoticed. If the customer discovers unauthorized transactions, the money is usually returned and the illegal activity is explained away as an error.
This category includes unauthorized access by unscrupulous bank employees to clients' deposit boxes. In such situations, securities and other material assets are stolen. The trick is that if the involvement of a bank employee in the theft is not proven, the client cannot claim compensation for losses.
Important: In order not to become a victim of cash settlement center employees, you must always check the compliance of the amount issued, and, if possible, the authenticity of the bills.
How to avoid being convicted of fraud
Before you can be convicted of fraud, the fact of fraud must be proven.
Fraud will not be convicted if:
- The loan amount does not exceed 1.5 million rubles (this does not include fines and penalties, as well as interest on loans, but only the loan amount).
- If your loan has been making scheduled payments for some time. For the court, this will mean that you did not initially have any malicious intent not to pay the loan.
- If you have notified your creditor bank in writing of your temporary inability to pay your loan debt. Not only are you not hiding from the bank, but you also openly inform it about temporary difficulties and your readiness to repay the debt at the first opportunity.
- If in the income certificate its level was somewhat overstated. This practice occurs very often. In addition, most employees of commercial organizations receive unofficial wages, in whole or in part. Therefore, instead of certificates in the 2-NDFL form, they bring to the bank certificates in the bank’s form or in the employer’s form. Data from such forms is not verified by the state, and therefore may well contain unreliable information.
- If your loan, for example, a car loan, mortgage, requires the presence of collateral, then the crime under Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation is missing.
- If your debt has passed the statute of limitations and you have declared this in court.
Attention: telephone scammers
Recently, fraud with bank cards has been gaining momentum.
These payment instruments involve remote control of a current account, so this opens up new opportunities for criminals. To be fair, we note that banks usually have nothing to do with this: third parties are trying to take possession of citizens’ funds in order to obtain personal gain. Considering that bank cards are usually linked to the owner’s phone number, the following methods of fraud are used here:
- Taking advantage of this situation, fraudsters can freely withdraw all the money from the card using a SIM card from a lost phone;
- SMS distribution: a message is received that a bank card has been blocked, and the attacker, posing as a bank employee, asks for the card number or code word to restore functionality.
In addition, Internet fraud is widespread. By downloading unverified applications from the Internet, a person “plants” a virus on his phone. The malicious program creates a fake mobile banking window where a person enters personal data, giving attackers access to their personal account. Such viruses usually block bank SMS notifications about withdrawals, so the person does not even suspect that the account is empty.
Important: When receiving messages about blocking of a bank card, you need to call the bank yourself and clarify the situation. Bank employees never ask clients for personal information!
Where to go when faced with fraud
Much depends on the form of fraud and the alleged culprit. When faced with illegal actions, you need to contact the following authorities:
- bank security service or branch management;
- law enforcement agencies and prosecutors;
- Central Bank.
It should be noted that each structural unit is limited in its powers. For example, if a person is a victim of telephone fraud, law enforcement agencies will deal with the matter. When the alleged attacker is a bank employee, the internal security service can deal with him.
At what point is the crime considered over?
The crime is considered completed from the moment when the attackers illegally took possession of the funds of the credit institution, and they had the opportunity to use the received amount of money at their own discretion.
The culprit may not incur criminal liability if the amount of money obtained fraudulently is less than 1000 rubles, or more than 1000 rubles, but not more than 2500 rubles. The actions of a person fall under the provisions of Art. 7.27 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, if there are no signs of a crime provided for in Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 of Art. 159.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.
Bank security measures
These responsibilities are assigned to the security service, which checks the purity of the transaction at the stage of drawing up the contract.
Such preventive measures are usually aimed at preventing fraudulent activities on the part of the borrower. However, during inspections, illegal actions on the part of employees of a financial organization often come to light. To be fair, we note that banks usually do not let fraud on the part of their employees go to waste. Credit and financial institutions are vitally interested in attracting customers and selling on the banking services market. Therefore, detected violations, at a minimum, lead to the dismissal of unscrupulous employees. Cases are often referred to law enforcement agencies and the perpetrators face criminal penalties.
What is this sphere?
The banking sector is part of the financial and credit system of the state and is a set of institutions whose activities are based on monetary relations.
Crimes in this area
The concept of “fraud in the banking sector” combines types of criminal activity directed against public relations in matters of respecting the interests of depositors and owners of financial and credit institutions, the order of their work and causing them material damage. Crimes in the banking sector are dual in nature , since, on the one hand, they can be directed against the bank itself, and on the other, against depositors.
Inspection by supervisory authorities
The activities of banking structures and financial institutions are regulated by Russian legislation.
The inspection function is assigned to the Central Bank of Russia. This is a kind of regulator of the entire financial market of the country. Representatives of this department conduct scheduled and unscheduled inspections and monitor compliance with the legal purity of certain transactions. If violations are detected, the Central Bank may take the following measures:
- introduction of direct control over financial activities;
- suspension of certain operations;
- issuing warnings about committed offenses;
- revocation of license.
In addition, the tax office and the prosecutor's office can check the commercial activities of banks.
