In Russia, they proposed to introduce a separate article for fraud in the field of funeral services

In his address, he noted that federal legislation and regional legal acts in the field of burial and funeral business guarantee citizens to receive a number of services and actions related to the burial of a deceased relative, free of charge.

Nevertheless, Orlov clarifies that there are regular reports in the media about yet another scammers - employees of ritual agencies, mortuaries or cemeteries - who are trying to take advantage of the difficult psychological state and grief of people, imposing on them the sale of free plots in the cemetery, which are legally required, and other illegal requisitions.

“I ask you to evaluate the feasibility of introducing a new article “Fraud in the field of funeral services” into the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation with a penalty of a fine of up to 300 thousand rubles or imprisonment for up to four years for theft or acquisition of the right to someone else’s property by deceit or abuse trust, a fine of up to 1 million rubles or imprisonment of up to eight years for a similar crime committed by a group of persons by prior agreement or on a large scale - with an amount of damage in excess of 250 thousand rubles, ”the text of the appeal says.

Article 159 of the Criminal Code currently provides for imprisonment of up to two years for theft of another's property by deceit or breach of trust, up to five years if the crime was committed by a group of persons by prior agreement, up to six years if the fraud was committed on a large scale.

Vadim Tkachenko, a lawyer, founder and CEO of the vvCube consulting group, in turn, noted that he did not consider it necessary to introduce a separate article for fraud in the field of funeral services.

“There will be no special advantages in introducing such a rule, and the sanction of the main article for fraud already allows you to impose a fairly severe punishment for such actions.

As for proving fraud, there are no special features in the field of funeral services: as usual, both correspondence and testimonies will be used, any documents that can confirm the commission of criminal acts, ”he said.

At the same time, the expert noted that it is not so easy to prove any fraud.

Violators tend to use clever methods to protect themselves from punishment.

Last summer, the State Budgetary Institution “Ritual” stated that over 500 shadow agents and dubious organizations operate on the Russian funeral services market.