Events

Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia, Doctor of Law, Professor Alexander Bastrykin attended the international scientific and practical conference “Modern Russian Criminal Policy in Terms of Criminalization of Economic Relations” that took place at the Russian State University of Justice. At the platform of the conference, representatives of the Russian law science, students from the self-appointed Donetsk Republic, the Republics of Armenia and Belarus, the Moscow Academy of the Investigative Committee of Russia, and subsidiaries of the Russian State University of Justice discussed relevant legal issues.

The conference was opened with a welcoming address of Russian State University of Justice Rector Olga Alexandrova and Director of Department for State Service and Human Resources of the Russian Ministry for Justice Oleg Vavilov. They noted that the conference is aimed to develop legal novelties in the sphere of economic relations.

Delivering his speech, Alexander Bastrykin talked about relevant issues of forming the new state criminal policy aimed at the protection of economic security and combating crime.

The Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia expressed his confidence that honest entrepreneurs must be protected from unjustified pressure in modern society. In this, it is necessary to suppress the abuse of unscrupulous commercial entities if they inflict damage to the state or to other persons. “The work of the Investigative Committee of Russia is being built in this regard. The Committee has special channels of communication to receive reports about the pressure put on the business. We hold personal receptions of entrepreneurs who can report issues of probes being investigated by the Investigative Committee of Russia,” the Head of the Committee added.

“In H1 2019, law enforcement bodies detected over 69,000 economic offences. These are often committed under the disguise or during legal economic operations. It this, their negative consequences affect the social and economic situation of the country. 13,500 corruption crimes were detected during the indicated period. In total, from the moment of its creation, that is from 2011, the Committee sent to the court almost 80,000 probes into corruption. Investigators brought to justice for offences involving corruption over 5,000 persons with a special legal status,” Alexander Bastrykin noted. He explained that corruption offences speed down the economic and social changes, expand the shadow economics sector, and decrease the tax revenue. 3,697 crimes detected in H1 2019 refer to taxes. Alexander Bastrykin stated, “In the last 10 years, a massive amount of work has been carried out in Russia to humanize criminal legislation concerning tax evasion. The applied measures helped to reach a significantly higher rate of compensation for the damage inflicted by such offences. This is the main task tackled by investigative units during the investigation of such cases. On average, two-thirds of these probes are suspended due to compensation for the damage. Last year, active work of investigative bodies resulted in the return to the state of over 42 billion of unpaid taxes.”

Alexander Bastrykin noted that, in general, the preventive measure of placing perpetrators into custody is much rarely used during the investigation of probes, especially in the economic sphere, that also proves the humanization of the criminal justice policy.

Addressing the audience, the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia underlined that the present students and their peers from other higher educational institutions are the ones to continue the struggle against modern challenges and threats to economic security including cybercrimes. That is why careful professional training including meetings in conference format is so important.

In conclusion of his speech, Alexander Bastrykin noted that the Investigative Committee of Russia has formed a number of suggestions for the improvement of combating economic crimes. However, each novelty requires deep economic analysis. Such an approach is the only one to develop an effective regulative mechanism between business and state.