Blackmail with nudes, hidden camera in an apartment: how in Russia they are sued under the article on the disclosure of personal data

3.5 thousand rubles for nudes

The body of 16-year-old schoolboy Ivan K. was found on December 4, 2021 on the shore of the Voronezh Reservoir near the Vogresovsky Bridge.

As acquaintances of the deceased say, the student had no reason to take his own life. He studied well, was friendly and sociable, and shortly before his death he met a girl online.

Sources in law enforcement agencies told RT that during the investigation it was established that correspondence on behalf of a fictitious girl with a schoolboy on the Internet was conducted by a native of the Rostov region, Alexander Shpilkin. 

The man sent the teenager supposedly intimate photos of her, and in return asked him to send his own. When Ivan succumbed to persuasion and sent nudes, Shpilkin began to extort 3.5 thousand rubles from him, threatening otherwise to send obscene content on social networks to all the teenager’s acquaintances. As a result, the tenth grader could not stand it and killed himself.

In November 2023, a man was sentenced to 9 years in prison for extortion and driving a minor to suicide.

Now Alexander Shpilkin is trying to appeal his sentence. The lawyer who represented him in court told RT that his client’s actions did not constitute a crime under the article of incitement to suicide charged against him.

Lost my job

The illegal publication of someone else’s obscene content usually falls under several criminal articles in Russian legislation, explains Elizaveta Nasrtdinova, a lawyer at the Moscow Bar Association “Knyazev and Partners”, in an interview with RT. Basically, attackers are tried under Art. 137 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - “Illegal collection or dissemination of information about the private life of a person, constituting his personal or family secret, without his consent.”

“In addition to Art. 137 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, situations where attackers publish other people’s intimate photos or videos without consent may fall under Art. 242 (Production and circulation of pornographic materials), as well as Art. 163 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (Extortion),” Nasrtdinova added.

As the lawyer notes, leaks of intimate photos and videos are fraught with large reputational losses, sometimes loss of work, and also cause damage to the mental health of victims, including suicide attempts.

Anastasia Shumilova, a resident of the city of Ishim in the Tyumen region, was working as a teacher at school when a local public figure, without asking, published online footage of a girl in which she was posing in a revealing outfit. The photographs were seen by Shumilova’s colleagues and the parents of her students - they were outraged by the fact that the teacher was participating in such filming.

• © From personal archive

Anastasia herself explained to RT that in addition to teaching, she maintains a blog and works as a model. When intimate footage of her went online, Anastasia began having problems at work at school - she was required to leave her modeling career or resign of her own free will. The girl decided to resign from her position. According to her, since then she has not been able to get a job in her specialty.

“I was asked to resign because “they don’t need such personnel.” Since the video was leaked online, I have not been able to find a job as a teacher. I continue to develop in blogging and modeling - but no one hires me as a teacher. I tried to get a job in almost all schools in Ishim, as well as in two schools in Tyumen, but over and over again I received refusals,” complains RT’s interlocutor.

This story hit Anastasia hard - after being fired from her job, she also experienced a divorce from her husband and a move to another city. At some point, Shumilova realized that she could not stand the stress and turned to a psychologist for help.

“When no one around you supports you - neither family nor friends - but only continuous hate pours in, it’s scary. If there had been a person in my place with a weaker psyche - who knows? Maybe he would have killed himself a long time ago,” Anastasia argues.

In her opinion, participation in any photo shoots is a personal matter for everyone, and no photographs speak of her professional qualities as a teacher. In the situation for which she received a wave of hate and bullying, only the person who leaked the video to the network is to blame, Anastasia emphasizes.

“Because of this man, I lost the opportunity to work in my profession. Despite the fact that when I worked at school, I didn’t have any problems, everyone was happy with me, relations with the team began to improve... I found a common language with the children, we worked well,” Shumilova gets upset.

It was not possible to bring to justice the person who published explicit footage online without her consent. Anastasia wrote a statement to the police, but she was refused to initiate a criminal case.

Cameras in a rented apartment

Sometimes according to Art. 137 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation still manages to punish attackers who illegally receive someone else’s intimate content. So, in 2021, a resident of Krasnoyarsk contacted the police after discovering that a hidden camera was installed in the rented apartment where she lived for a month and a half. The girl found the recording device by accident and immediately contacted the police.

The owner of the apartment was detained and a criminal case was opened against him under Art. 137 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and 138 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (illegal production of a special technical device intended for secretly obtaining information).

As the investigation found, the 35-year-old landlord illegally and without notifying the tenants installed a video camera in his apartment on Elena Stasovaya Street, which he made using a makeshift method, modifying the device in such a way that filming could be carried out around the clock, and the broadcast of what was happening in the apartment was transmitted to his electronic devices via Wi-Fi.

The court documents indicate that a homemade special technical device (STS) for secretly obtaining information (video camera) was mounted in a small niche in the wall in the kitchen and covered with a ventilation grill - so that the residents would not suspect anything.

“After installing the STS, the defendant entered into a rental agreement for an apartment with the victim and during her stay in the said apartment via a wireless Wi-Fi network <...>, he received video data about the victim’s private life on his phone, computer, “cloud storage”, thereby illegally collecting information about her private life, which constitutes her personal secret, without her consent,” says the verdict of the Oktyabrsky District Court of Krasnoyarsk.

A man who secretly filmed his tenants was sentenced to real time.

Based on the totality of the two articles charged against him, the court sentenced him to a year and six months in prison. In addition, during the investigation it turned out that the owner of the apartment with the wiretapping had previously been convicted of fraud - then he was given a suspended sentence, but as a result of the new trial, the punishment was replaced with real imprisonment. The attacker was sent to prison for four years and six months.

Prosecution

In 2022, federal courts of general jurisdiction ruled under Art. 137 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation 252 convictions. Among the defendants in such criminal cases, 9 people received real sentences, 12 received suspended sentences, 106 defendants under this article were sentenced to fines, 27 to correctional and 90 to compulsory labor.

Nevertheless, judicial statistics do not reflect the real state of affairs with the leaking of intimate content, says Elizaveta Nasrtdinova, a lawyer at the Moscow Bar Association. According to her, most victims of such leaks are simply afraid to contact law enforcement agencies.

“Not all people who are subject to such attacks by criminals turn to the police. Victims of leaks often feel ashamed; not everyone wants, for example, police officers to see these photographs later. People strive for as few people as possible to see these photos and videos,” explained RT’s interlocutor.

Another problem in the investigation of criminal cases related to the illegal publication of intimate photos and videos by third parties is that attackers often act anonymously and from fake accounts - in such situations it is impossible to establish the identity of the criminal.

“Often the police refuse to initiate criminal proceedings at all. This is usually motivated by the fact that the person, for example, sent his intimate photos and videos to the attackers. In addition, the police may refer to the fact that due to anonymity it is impossible to identify the attacker who leaked obscene content to the network. It is difficult for the victims to get a case initiated in principle, so that some kind of investigation begins,” the lawyer concluded.