OBJECTIVE SIGNS OF DIGITAL FRAUD AND THEIR SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE QUALIFICATION OF THE ACT

Introduction: the article considers the object and mandatory signs of the objective side of digital fraud (socially dangerous act, causal relationship and consequences), as well as optional signs (method, time, place, instrument, means of committing a criminal act, situation). At the same time, the article analyzes both the main composition of fraud, regulated by Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, and qualified formulations (Article 1593 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, Article 1596 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). The author examines the peculiarities of establishing individual signs of the objective side and points out that the scientific controversy is caused by the question of defining information technology as an independent sign of digital fraud, as well as the question of determining the place of commission of the studied illegal phenomenon. Literature review: the scientific works of Puchkov D.V., Russkevich E.A., Begishev I.R., Ovsyukov D.A., Efremov M.A. have been studied. Materials and Methods: the methodological basis of the study is represented by a set of general scientific and special methods of scientific cognition, including the dialectical method, formal legal and systemic structural method. The empirical basis of the study was made up of: current legislative norms, statistical data of the GIAC of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia, resolutions of the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation, resolutions of district courts presented in open sources. Results: the author comes to the conclusion that information technology should be recognized as a means of committing digital fraud, and the location of the perpetrator should be considered the place of commission of these acts. Discussion and Conclusions: in addition, it is determined that Part 3 of Article 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation should be supplemented with a qualifying feature "using information technology", which in turn will emphasize the increased danger of such acts and clearly define a single qualification for fraud using any type of information technology.