Improvement of Crime-Detection Equipment Support for the Border-Guard Organizations of the Federal Border-Guard Service — a Priority of Enhancing the Effectiveness of Smuggling Control

Nikolai Pavlovich Frolkin

Smuggling is not really a new type of economic crime. However, smuggling was not defined as an economic crime by Russian criminal law until the new Criminal Code was enacted. Besides, the criminalistic parameters of smuggling have largely transformed since reform began in Russia. This especially refers to certain features of smuggling, such as: items smuggled, methods of smuggling, and persons involved in smuggling. Smuggling of weapons, narcotics, strategic raw materials, and cultural values is now a priority field of organized criminal activities.

Since the state border largely coincides with the customs border of the Russian Federation (except for unbonded areas and warehouses), border-guard organizations cooperate with the Federal Security Service and the State Customs Committee of the Russian Federation in detecting and terminating and sometimes in disclosing and investigating smuggling.

The improvement of crime-detection equipment support is a high priority in making border-guard organizations more effective in combating offenses on the State border, including smuggling.

Today, the supply of crime-detection equipment for border-guard organizations leaves much to be desired. Deliveries are scarce and irregular and fail to accommodate the real requirements dictated by special features of border-guard forces’ activities. As a result, much of the crime-detection equipment now available to border-guard organizations is past operating life and/or obsolete. Modern equipment is not purchased, because the importance of it is underestimated and because of scarce funding. Border-guard organizations use crime-detection equipment designed for criminal police units, but that equipment is not adapted to special requirements of border-guard service. The organization of border-guard units does not make it possible to ensure efficient operation and maintenance of crime-detection equipment. For all these problems to be resolved, it is necessary, in our opinion, for crime-detection researchers to work together with hands-on experts to develop a systematic science-based approach to organizing the supply of crime-detection equipment for the border-guard organizations of the Federal Border-Guard Service of the Russian Federation.

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