Criminological Forecasting of Cross-border Digital Crime on

Sustainable Development of Business: Criminal Law, Criminological

and Organizational Aspects

Gennady P. Starinov

Faculty of Social and Humanitarian Studies, Komsomolsk-na-Amure State University, Lenin’s Street 27, Komsomolsk-on-

Amur, Russian Federation

Keywords: Delictual Management, Genetic Fingerprinting, Right on Name, Transnational Crime, Delictual Security of

the Business Environment.

Abstract: The article analyzes the factors affecting the delictual security of the business environment. The operational

and procedural forms for investigation of the contract murders of entrepreneurs are considered. The foreign

experience of the effective implementation of criminological policy in the People's Republic of China under

implementation of the social trust program is given. Structural analysis of the legal framework of national and

international legislation on information security has identified the need to use the criminological analysis of

the effectiveness of law enforcement agencies for prevention of crimes that use IT technology. The obtained

analytical data allows interpreting them for criminological forecasting of risks and threats of delictual security

of the business environment. By improving the operational and procedural forms of investigation of contract

murders of entrepreneurs, the study conducted by the author made it possible to specify legal proposals for

improving the operational and procedural forms for investigation of the contract murders of entrepreneurs.

The author examined conditions of the effectiveness of criminological forecasting to prevent digital crime

and improve digitalization of both law enforcement agencies and private organizations. Legal mechanisms to

improve the forecasting of criminogenic performances will allow increasing the effectiveness of the state

policy to ensure security in the field of legal business operation.

1 INTRODUCTION

For the development of forecasts to prevent digital

crime in the field of business operation, the fact of

defining the necessary and sufficient amount of social

and legal information - the digital space is of

particular importance.

The Federal Law "On Information,

Computerization and Data Protection" dated

02.20.1995 N 24-FZ, as well as the Federal Law "On

Information, Information Technologies and Data

Protection" dated 07.27.2006 N 149-FZ, allow

predicting forms of the digital crime prevention based

on the integrated use of public and private

information relations (Novichkov, 2017).

The scientific and technological progress, which

allows the direct implementation of information and

communication technologies in the business sector, is

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7748-8954

an important factor influencing the level of

criminological forecasting (Sanders and Sheptycki,

2017).

The low level of professional training of law

enforcement officers and private security agencies

predetermined the inefficiency of counteracting new

forms of economic crimes in the digital business

environment:

1 cyber espionage by criminal communities

carried out on the basis of illegal access to protected

information through circumventing the computer

security systems of a business entity;

2 operation of illegal business through the use of

the Internet including electronic trading and financial

services;

3 business crime based on the illegal export of

capital, “laundering” of criminal revenue using

mining farms, cryptocurrencies, in the form of non-

fiat (private) electronic money (Izborsk Club, 2017).

792

Starinov, G.

Criminological Forecasting of Cross-border Digital Crime on Sustainable Development of Business: Criminal Law, Criminological and Organizational Aspects.

DOI: 10.5220/0010597707920797

In Proceedings of the International Scientiﬁc and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure (ISSDRI 2021), pages 792-797

ISBN: 978-989-758-519-7

2 METHODS

The adoption of the new Doctrine of Information

Security of the Country (ConsultantPlus, 2016) based

on the Development Strategy of the Information

Society in the Russian Federation (ConsultantPlus-1,

2017) and the new Strategy for the Economic

Security of the Russian Federation (ConsultantPlus-

2, 2017) will allow creation of a legal framework for

counteracting economic digital crime (Ovchinsky,

2017).

This indicates a steady tendency in recent years to

reduce the number of recorded digital crimes of an

economic nature with an increase in the share of

economic crimes committed on a large and especially

large scale. This is largely due to the mechanism of

established corruption relations worked out to date

within the economic and digital sphere (Tikhomirov,

2017).

Therefore, cross-border high-tech digital crime

realizes its criminal capabilities beyond any state

borders using software as a crime tool.

As an example, the Watson Discovery Advisor

cloud technology, which was previously created by

the government for scientific development and

analytical research, and is currently being used to

solve criminal tasks, in particular, the development of

new types of firearms (Weaponland, 2012).

It is no wonder that criminal statistics began to

record unlawful acts committed with the use of

computer and communication technologies from the

beginning of 2017 taking into account crimes of an

economic nature (2572 crimes were detected in

January-March). These indicators do not take into

account the level of latency and the colossal

victimization factor (Ministry of Internal Affairs of

Russia, 2017).

In this case, the interaction of representatives of

legal business, who hire high-tech criminals to

purloin intellectual property or discredit competitors,

erases the borders and legalizes money obtained by

criminal means at the same time actively, on an ever-

increasing scale.

The introduction of cryptocurrency into the

financial turnover, which allows international crime

to engage in cyber blackmailing offenses, facilitates

the criminal legalization of funds. In particular, in

May 2017, the WannaCru ransomware “attacked”

computers in 150 countries of the world, with the

subsequent solicitation of $3,000 in bitcoins to unlock

computer networks.

During the 4 months of 2017, more than 50 banks

around the world fell victim to the banking Trojan

GM Bot, which disguised as their official

applications. The customers of Citibank, ING, Bank

of America mobile applications, as well as other

large-scale banks in the United States, Canada,

Australia and Europe were among the victims of the

malware.

Kaspersky Lab registered 205 thousand attempts

to infect user resources in 2013, 1.8 million in 2016,

and more than 1.65 million during the first eight

months of 2017.

In February 2018, a cryptocurrency miner

launched on more than 4 thousand Internet sites

around the world, including American, Australian

and UK Internet resources, which illegally used up to

40 % of the computing power of visitors

(Professionals.ru, 2018).

Cybercrime can be associated with not only

information security problems, but also with threats

to statehood, the military-industrial and industrial

complex, and life support infrastructure (CRN, 2017;

Tseveleva and Starinov, 2020).

The criminal legal risks and threats caused by new

forms of economic crime implemented using digital

technologies are so diverse that the only way to

counter them is with the joint efforts of the whole

society (Ovchinsky and Larina, 2017).

Moreover, under the agreement of the Shanghai

Cooperation Organization in 2009, a legally binding

mechanism was formulated that restricted the

activities of states in the use of information

technologies, but most of its norms have not received

practical development (Professionals.ru, 2017).

Therefore, now, criminological prerequisites have

appeared for forming of international legal acts and

for organizing of appropriate fiscal structures that

could counteract transnational crime.

In addition, we are talking about international

cooperation of states in countering “transnational

crime, including coordination of legal policy,

unification of legal norms, conclusion of relevant

international agreements and mutual legal assistance”

(Nomokonov, 2010).

In this connection, a foreign experience is of

interest in the effective implementation of

criminological policies in the People's Republic of

China as part of the implementation of a social trust

program for each citizen. In 2014, the State Council

of the People's Republic of China introduced the

“Program for creating a social credit system (2014–

2020). The system is already operating in pilot mode

in about thirty cities of China (Carnegie Moscow

Center-1, 2017).

High-ranking holders will enjoy various social

and economic benefits. However, those who with a

rating that does not meet the requirements will have

Criminological Forecasting of Cross-border Digital Crime on Sustainable Development of Business: Criminal Law, Criminological and

Organizational Aspects

793

to suffer – the full power of administrative sanctions

and legal restrictions will fall upon them.

The main goal of the criminological policy of the

Chinese leadership is to improve both the mechanism

for encouraging law-abiding and conscientious

citizens, and the mechanism for punishing those who

violate the law and lose confidence, so that a person

does not even dare and simply cannot lose public

confidence.

Mr. Deng Yuwen, the Chinese political scientist,

analyzing the current situation in the People’s

Republic of China, wrote as follows. “A society in

which ethical boundaries are constantly blurred, a

personality breaks up, there aren’t even elementary

restraints what is virtue, what is dishonor, when the

whole nation is driven by criminal interests only, such

a society degrades to the level of the struggle for

existence, to the animal level.” (Carnegie Moscow

Center-2, 2017).

3 RESULTS

Having studied the features and characteristics of new

types of crime, a criminological analysis of the work

of law enforcement agencies to prevent crimes using

digital technologies will allow us to predict the risks

and threats of a criminal type that our society will

have to deal with.

Moreover, it is important to bear in mind that the

risks and threats caused by digital cybercrime will be

so diverse in future, that confronting them only with

the capabilities of law enforcement agencies will be

unrealistic.

In particular, the COVID-19 global pandemic

swept the whole world in 2020, brining

unprecedented pressure on state institutions, applying

an additional burden on the health care system.

Criminals quickly acted on the opportunity to use the

threat to the global economy, adapting their criminal

methods or developing new forms of digital criminal

activity. Cybersecurity risks for business operation

have increased.

Cybercriminals will continue to improve criminal

schemes in order to deploy various packages of

malware and ransomware associated with the

COVID-19 pandemic. They will be able to expand

their criminal activity by including other types of

online attacks.

We predict the introduction of new fraudulent

schemes to increase the number of further victims of

cybercrime. The possible transfer of some of the most

qualified specialists in the field of information

technology to the criminal sphere may deteriorate

preventing cybercrime in business.

In particular, N. Kasperskaya, the board chairman

of the “Motherland's Software” (ARPP) software

developers’ association, warned Mikhail Mishustin,

the Russian Prime Minister, about the risk of mass

emigration of Russian IT specialists in the coming

years.

According to her preliminary assessment, about

10 thousand to 15 thousand programmers in the field

of information technology can leave Russia in the

period from 2020 to 2021 (RUSSOFT, 2020).

We agree with V. S. Ovchinsky (2017), that

modern digital technology contributes to the fact that

not only business, but also criminal activity can use

almost all computer programs and new information

and communication technology solutions.

Effective crime prevention in the digital space

will be ineffective without creating mutually

beneficial public-private partnerships, based on the

systematic use of practical experience and

technological knowledge owned by the business

sector.

Only in this case, delictual management as a

control system for preventing crime in the field of

digital technologies will be more pre-emptive in

criminal realities than in response (Ovchinsky, 2017).

Prevention to the future crime, committing crimes in

the field of digital technologies, will be effective only

if it becomes the affair of the whole society and of the

most active, advanced including in terms of

technology its members, entrepreneurs in particular

(Ovchinsky and Larina, 2017).

The Decree of the President of the Russian

Federation dated March 11, 2019 No. 97 approved the

attached “Fundamentals of the state policy of the

Russian Federation in the field of chemical and

biological safety for the period until 2025 and

beyond”. The Decree is of great practical interest, as

it will help to improve the further criminological

forecast for effective crime prevention using digital

technologies (ConsultantPlus-1, 2019).

4 DISCUSSION

Special aspects of the application of digital

technologies in practice related to the creation of a

unified system for genetic fingerprinting is

determined not only by emergency situations of a

non-criminal nature with human victims, but also by

the facts of abduction of business representatives,

followed by an infrigement on their lives (latent

crime).

ISSDRI 2021 - International Scientiﬁc and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure

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According to official statistics, 25711 missing

person cases were registered to identify citizens by

unidentified corpses in the territory of the Russian

Federation for 2016, 21463 missing person cases in

2017, 7894 missing person cases in 2018, and 14,794

missing person cases for January-September of 2019

(EMISS, 2020).

Comparative data on the results of the

identification of unidentified corpses in the regions of

the Khabarovsk Territory for the period 2016 - 2020

show that the law enforcement agencies work at an

insufficiently effective level. The percentage of

identification of the unidentified corpses found is

60% approximately.

Moreover, the identification of unidentified

corpses terminates as statute-barred after 10 years,

which gives reason to believe that there is a violation

of constitutional human rights, a violation of the right

on name in particular when burying. Indeed, the main

goal of law enforcement agencies to identify

unidentified corpses is to protect such non-material

values as name, dignity and inviolability of a person

in the end.

The right to receive a name is formed on the basis

of article 24, part 2 of the International Covenant on

Civil and Political Rights, which fixes the fact that

“every child must be registered immediately after his

birth and must have a name” (Consultant Plus-2,

2020). As well as paragraph 1 of Article 58 of the

Family Code of the Russian Federation, which

stipulates the right of a child to the first name,

patronym and last name (ConsultantPlus, 2012).

5 CONCLUSIONS

The basis for ensuring the safety of each individual is

the norms of criminal law aimed at protecting against

criminal attacks on the name, life, health, freedom

belonging to a citizen from birth until his death.

Unfortunately, the right to the name of every

citizen of the Russian Federation should be enshrined

in the norms of Constitutional law.

In particular, we propose, paragraph 1 of article

23 of the Constitution of the Russian Federation:

"everyone has the right to the name, privacy, personal

and family secrets, legal protection of his good name

in all non-prohibited ways."

It could be argued with certainty that the

identification of unidentified bodies was a legal tool

for the implementation of criminological versions

aimed at the procedural investigation and prompt

disclosure of murders committed for hire.

In this case, the practical implementation of Part

2 of Article 178 of the Hugo-Criminal Procedure

Code of the Russian Federation, aimed at genomic

registration of unidentified corpses, will be one of the

legal mechanisms governing the state policy of the

Russian state to ensure the chemical and biological

safety of our society from criminal encroachments"

(ConsultantPlus-1, 2019).

The use of digital technologies in the process of

implementing forensic and biological examinations

will allow the investigative body to identify the

identity of unidentified corpses, with the aim of

effectively investigating and revealing the serious

elements of the crime - hiring killings committed

against business representatives.

In order to improve the operational and procedural

forms of following contract killings of business

entities, we propose:

1 Part 2 of article 2 of the Law "On Operational

Search Activities," which regulates the main tasks of

carrying out the operational search for fugitives from

the justice system, be supplemented with the phrase -

as well as the search for missing persons and

identification of unidentified corpses

(ConsultantPlus-2, 2019);

2 Paragraph 2 of the "Fundamentals of the state

policy of the Russian Federation in the field of

ensuring chemical and biological safety for the period

up to 2025 and the future" - be supplemented with the

phrase - in order to protect the life and health of other

persons their rights and legitimate interests, ensure

the defense of the country and the security of the state

(ConsultantPlus-1, 2019);

In this case, Bill No. 759897-7 of the Federal Law

of the Russian Federation, related to the formation of

a single information register, will also be

implemented in order to protect the rights and

legitimate interests of both Russian citizens and

foreign citizens located in our country, "and will be a

legal tool for criminological forecasting of digital

crime in our society (Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 2020).

We believe that consistent activities related to the

implementation of the listed legal proposals for

improving predictive forecasting will ultimately

contribute to the effective provision of criminological

safety in entrepreneurial activity.

It was clear that the objectives of criminological

forecasting to counter digital crime could not be

achieved without the political will of public

authorities and governments to improve

digitalization, both of law enforcement agencies and

private organizations, which ensured the tortological

security of the entrepreneurial environment.

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Organizational Aspects

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