The Theft of Cargo of Railway Rolling Stock: Issues of Criminal Characterization and Investigation
In the academic and educational criminal and legal literature, special attention is paid to crimes committed on rail transport. The statistics provided by the official website of the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation confirms that the majority of these crimes are thefts. In the study, the issues of characterization of these crimes are analyzed, as well as their elements. Particular attention is paid to the subject of the crime: in most crimes it is special, and this also affects the characterization of such theft. Given the variability of approaches to qualifying of thefts, the authors propose their own definition of such theft. The methods of investigation of the above-mentioned thefts are examined. The authors cite various investigative situations arising on different stages of investigation and note that the characterization of theft of cargo of railway rolling stock, as well as determination of the range of people potentially involved in the crime, depends on where, when and how it was committed, what are the amount and the value of the property stolen, and whether the crimes are multiple.