Cases of theft of car registration numbers and demanding certain compensation from the owner of the vehicle in exchange for the return of the mentioned numbers have become widespread in recent years.

 

According to the study during January-February 2020 and 2021, 306 cases of car registration number theft were registered in Yerevan. Decisions were made to refuse to initiate criminal cases on 261 decisions, out of which 235 were due to lack of corpus delicti, 17 due to lack of crime, 9 because of lack of complaint by the applicant, and in 3 cases materials were in process.

 

From 306 recorded cases, only 42 were prosecuted, when even the owner of the vehicle was demanded to pay some compensation for returning the stolen numbers. In addition, 41 cases were initiated under Article 182, Part 1 of the RA Criminal Code and 1 case under Article 182, Part 2, Point 3.1 of the RA Criminal Code.

 

The fact that a small number of criminal cases have been filed is conditioned by the existing disagreements in the issue of qualifying the theft of vehicle registration numbers. In particular, criminal cases are not initiated on the grounds that registration numbers are not subject to theft, as they do not represent any value, while items of any kind that have an economic value may be subject to theft. Meanwhile, it is obvious that the above-mentioned actions cause material damage to the owner of the vehicle in all cases, as the latter paid money to obtain the stolen registration number, which can be up to 8 million AMD in case of much demanded registration numbers. In this case, taking into account the prohibition established by the normative legal acts for the restoration of the registration number, only the amount foreseen for payment may be considered as a damage and recovered, that is, the state fee.

 

Besides, in the point of view of qualification, it is also complicated regarding cases, when after embezzlement of the registration numbers the criminals leave their contacts to connect to them and pay some money to return them to the owner. Though according to Article 182 of the RA Criminal Code the crime may be also disguised and in this case it can be considered as a threat to destroy property, the registration number, cases of discovering the numbers immediately after the case are not rare.

 

To this end the General Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Armenia represented to the RA Ministry of Justice the recommendation to make changes in the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia in order to foresee the registration number under Article 324 of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Armenia and define criminal liability for that crime.

 

In addition, taking into account the fact that because of harassments large amount of damage of money up to 8 million AMD is caused, as well as other damages may be caused under Article 324 of the RA Criminal Code.

 

In case the legislative change proposed by the Prosecutor's Office is adopted, it is expected that within the framework of Article 324 of the RA Criminal Code, criminal liability will be provided for theft of vehicle registration numbers, as well as for extortion. As a result, the criminal and legal fight against these crimes will become more targeted, legal certainty will be ensured, and the criminal policy of the state in the field of crimes against the governing order will be more effectively implemented.