A criminal lawsuit involving a charge with illegal obtaining of loan with the help of counterfeited documents was considered by the court in one of Yekaterinburg’s commercial banks on November 8, 2006. The court conducted the hearing in one of the offices of SKB-Bank located on the premises of No. 2 court area of Oktyabrskiy district of Yekaterinburg.

This was the trial of Valentina Korotynskaya charged with crimes indicated in Article 327 (part 3) (Use of counterfeited documents) and Article 159 (part 1) (Fraud) of Russian Criminal Code. Unemployed Ms Korotynskaya got an 114,000 RUR consumer loan in a local bank providing a fake work record card with the fictitious data on her alleged workplace, a fake salary certificate and other papers.

According to the accused, she obtained the counterfeited documents from a number of people (whose cases are now being investigated separately); there are quite a few such ‘intermediaries’ offering to ‘assist’ people in getting a loan from a bank nowadays. One can see ads like ‘help with getting a credit’ in mass media (classified, crawl lines, billboards, etc.); these advertisements are usually placed by people or short-lived businesses that offer ‘informational services and assistance’ to those willing to get a consumer loan. This actually means producing fake salary certificates and evidence of employment (when the company or organization does not, in fact, even exist), and confirming the employment data provided by the client with the help of dummy phone numbers. These ‘assistants’ normally charge their clients 10% to 70% of the loan amount saying that the latter does not have to make any payments to the bank afterwards, which is obviously a lie.

Should anyone get a loan in such a way, not only the ‘assistant’ must be prepared for criminal liability but also the person who actually dealt with the papers and obtained the credit using fictitious papers; this was further proved by yesterday’s court hearing: Ms Korotynskaya was sentenced to 12 months of community service and a fine coming to 20% of her annual income.