How people are searched: who can be searched, features

Legal advice > Administrative law > Paperwork > Who can file a missing person report and how to properly organize searches

A missing person is a situation, unfortunately, familiar to many citizens of the Russian Federation. Of course, the circumstances are not very pleasant, but you definitely shouldn’t panic if they exist.

Having discovered a missing person, it is necessary to organize a search for him as quickly as possible. But who can initiate search efforts? In what form should I submit the application? Where should I submit it? Let's figure it out.

Types of search

Search activities are a whole range of measures aimed at finding missing persons or people hiding from justice. Often a person goes on the run for no apparent reason. Such people are driven by a feeling of fear or reluctance to communicate with relatives. If attempts to hide from the investigation are made by the suspect, then this fact will be taken into account when sentencing.

There are several types of search:

Local. Such events are carried out in the area where the missing citizen lives or in his populated area.
Regional. Assumes a wider search area. They are looking for a person within the region, region, district.
Federal. In this case, the missing person is searched throughout the country. In addition, vehicles involved in fatal accidents may be put on the federal wanted list.
International. If there is information that a criminal has crossed the border, he may be wanted all over the world. Law enforcement officers send leads to various countries, involving the customs service in the search. Only those criminals who have committed high-profile and major crimes are put on the international wanted list. These include politicians, hackers, and terrorists.

Proper procedure in the event of a missing person

No need to panic!

Once again, when you discover a missing person, the main thing is not to panic. First of all, it is necessary to conduct a detailed analysis of the situation. At a minimum, it is important to minimize as much as possible the chances that the missing person, as they say, went on a spree or deliberately does not make contact with loved ones.

If the missing person and the seriousness of the situation are confirmed, then you will have to do the following:

First, go to the nearest law enforcement department. Inform the duty officer about the incident and ask him for a form to fill out a statement.
Having correctly drawn up the document, indicating in its contents everything that will help in the search for the missing person, hand it over to authorized persons. Do not accept any excuses like “come back on the 3rd day of disappearance”; a missing person’s report must be accepted here and now, regardless of how long the missing person has been out of contact. This procedure is determined by law, or more precisely, by Articles 144-145 of the Criminal Procedure Code of the Russian Federation and the Order of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation and the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation dated February 27, 2010, number 70/122 “On approval of the Instructions on the procedure for considering applications, reports of crimes and other information about incidents related to the unknown disappearance of citizens.”
After this, try to check all the possible locations of the missing person, perhaps he will be found. In the process of such verification, it would not be superfluous to interview acquaintances of the missing person or other persons who may have seen him before his disappearance.
The last step will be to contact voluntary organizations that carry out activities to search for missing citizens. You can find out about the presence of such associations on the Internet resources of your locality.

It is worth noting that the success of subsequent searches largely depends on the efficiency of the activities described above. Therefore, do not delay organizing the latter and try to start looking for the missing person as soon as possible after his disappearance.

Who might be wanted

The following persons may be put on the wanted list:

Citizens missing. If a person does not contact for a long time, his relatives can contact the police with a corresponding statement. Often, missing persons deliberately do not contact their relatives.
Suspected of committing criminal offenses. In this case, the search procedure is initiated by the investigator. In his actions, he is guided by Article 210 of the Code of Criminal Procedure of the Russian Federation.
Draft dodgers from military service. The search for fugitives is carried out by military commissariats.
Debtors for alimony, fines or persons evading the execution of court orders. The bailiff service is looking for such citizens.

Where else to go

In cases of missing persons, the clock is often ticking, and therefore, after contacting the police, you should not sit idly by. You have many ways to speed up your searches and significantly expand their coverage:

Write messages on social networks. There are both special groups to help find people, as well as general groups for certain locations. If you leave a message there, random witnesses will be able to leave their notes and testimony, and concerned citizens will be able to offer help;
Contact volunteer services for help. There are quite a lot of them; there may even be several of them in one city. Their advantage is that they have extensive experience in searches, and can also quickly attract a large number of concerned citizens to the search. Their help is especially useful in cases where the missing person needs to be looked for outside the city (for example, in searching for tourists or vacationers lost in the forest);
Contact private agencies . Their help will be useful if a lot of time has passed since the disappearance, but neither the volunteers, nor the police, nor you yourself have found any clues. Detectives have extensive experience, are slightly more mobile than large search teams, and also use a wide variety of information gathering methods.

How to find out if a person is wanted

Today such information can be obtained via the Internet. A similar service is offered by a number of sites. However, most of them are paid resources. However, you should not pay, because this information is freely available.

"Attention wanted!"

This is an electronic resource owned by the Main Directorate of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation. There is information here about both missing citizens and persons suspected of committing crimes. This resource has been operating since 2014 and is available on the official website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

To search for a citizen, you should perform the following steps:

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Enter in the window provided the data of the person you need to find (full name, year of birth);
indicate the applicant's email address;
we go through the “I’m not a robot” check and wait for an answer;
the system will process the received information and issue a short report.

More detailed information will be sent to the specified email address. For example, if the person you are looking for is wanted, then the applicant will learn about the reasons for the search, special features of the missing person, etc.

Bailiffs database

If a person has not paid the fine imposed on him by the court, or has evaded paying alimony for a long time, then his case is transferred to the FSSP. The defaulter is entered into the general database of enforcement proceedings, which is freely available.

You can obtain information about debtors online on the official website of the FSSP. To do this, fill out a simple form and wait for a response. The applicant will receive information about the debtor and the amount of his debt. Here you can also find out the data from the writ of execution, as well as the contacts of the bailiff who monitors the execution of the court sentence.

How to write an application correctly and where to submit it

Unfortunately, the statistics of missing persons is disappointing...

As it became clear from the information presented earlier, a missing person report must be filed with the police. The department of the government agency is obliged to accept the document, regardless of whether it is provided at the applicant’s place of residence or not, how complete the information content of the application is and whether the applicant has evidence that he is directly interested in finding the missing person.

Refusal for such reasons is illegal, which is already punishable according to the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation. As for the actual preparation of the application, it must contain:

in the upper right corner of the A4 sheet, it is indicated to whom and from whom this application is being submitted (full name of the head of the internal affairs department, full name of the internal affairs department, full name and address of the applicant);
just below, right in the center – the name of the paper in free form, but containing the word “STATEMENT”;
further in the center - a detailed, most accurate and concise description of the problem that has arisen and an indication of the applicant’s request for the police to take measures to search for the missing person (here it is important to indicate all known information about the missing person, data about his expected and last whereabouts, as well as other information that will help in search of a missing person);
in the lower left corner - signature and date of application.

To better understand the essence of writing statements about a missing citizen, it would be useful to consider the following example:

To the Head of the Pyatnitsky Department of Internal Affairs for the city of Moscow – I.I. Ivanov. From citizen Petr Petrovich Broshen, living at the address: Moscow, st. Capitalista, building 14, apartment 7

MISSING PERSON REPORT

More than a day ago, I, Abandoned Pyotr Petrovich, discovered the disappearance of my wife, Abandoned Inessa Pavlovna, born on April 12, 1980, living at Moscow, st. Capitalist, building 14, apartment 7, and working at Moscow, st. Sovetskaya, house 178.

The missing woman did not answer calls, did not communicate in any other way, and was not at work. She disappeared on February 23, 2022, after not returning from work at the required 8:00 pm. Usually I went home on the 21st bus from the stop at my place of work straight to home.

Referring to the above and the norms of the legislation of the Russian Federation, I ask you to organize a search for my wife immediately.

Compiled February 25, 2022. Applicant's signature: "BPP".

In general, a well-written statement about a missing person looks something like this, so using it as a sample, if you need to draw up a similar paper, would be a pretty good decision.

Mechanism of operational-search activities

When trying to find a missing person, authorized persons perform the following activities:

Interview with colleagues, acquaintances, spouse, ex-husband of the missing person.
Inspection of housing, sending requests to morgues, work, hospitals.
Surveillance of persons with whom the missing person may maintain contact, wiretapping.
Sending information to the traffic police, airports and train stations.

From the moment the search activities begin, information about the missing citizen appears in the “Attention, wanted!” section. official website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Once a person is found, the information is removed from the database.

Statutes of limitations on the federal wanted list

If a person has been declared missing, they will search for him until they find him. Reasons for stopping searches may be as follows:

A person's body was discovered or there was indisputable evidence of his death.
The citizen was declared dead through the court.

If a criminal has been put on the wanted list, the search will end when the statute of limitations expires. It all depends on the severity of the crime committed. There are the following statutes of limitations in criminal cases:

For minor crimes – 2 years. We are talking about those criminal acts for which the maximum sentence is less than three years.
If the attacker committed a crime of medium gravity, then the statute of limitations will be 6 years. We are talking about those acts for which a maximum penalty of 5 years of imprisonment is provided.
If the criminal's actions caused major damage, he will be wanted for 10 years. The maximum penalty for serious crimes is 10 years in prison.
For especially serious crimes, the statute of limitations is 15 years. These are criminal acts for which the punishment exceeds 10 years in prison.

The statute of limitations begins from the moment the crime was committed. If the attacker is not found within the allotted period of time, the criminal case is closed. Subsequently, a person cannot be held accountable for a crime for which the statute of limitations has expired. If the attacker deliberately hides from the investigation, the statute of limitations may be suspended. The countdown is restored when a suspect is detected.

Who can apply

Not only a family member can file a missing person report

So, as was clarified in the previous paragraph of the article, you can report a missing person regardless of the statute of limitations for this phenomenon. But who has the right to initiate searches? Let's try to figure it out.

In fact, according to the current legislation of the Russian Federation, any person interested in this action has the right to file a missing person report, for example:

close or distant relatives of the disappeared person;
friends or comrades of the latter;
employer or employees of the missing person;
other citizens of the Russian Federation who wish to find a person for any of their reasons.

Refusal to accept paperwork for an applicant due to “insufficient proximity to the missing person” or similar circumstances is unacceptable and is a complete violation of the law on the part of police officers. If such circumstances exist, demand from law enforcement officers a reasoning for their actions, and in the absence of such, complain to the Prosecutor's Office about the outrages of the employees, having first submitted a statement of the disappearance of the person to another police department.

In order to make sure that the application was accepted and the search will be organized, be sure to ask the authorized person for the full name of the employee who completed the application and the registration number of the document after submitting the document. Having this information, in the absence of proper performance of duties on the part of police officers, they can be punished in the future.