Forensic Approaches to Investigating and Countering Crimes Facilitated by Information and Communication Technologies

The paper examines the potential of criminalistic science, understood as an applied legal discipline, to enhance mechanisms for combating crimes carried out using information and communication technologies (ICT). The key problems identified are: that ICT-mediated offender–victim communications occur remotely, that both the preparation and commission of offenses are carefully concealed, and that crime traces are often obscured by modern technologies. These factors create substantial difficulties for law enforcement in establishing offenders’ locations, identities, and other circumstances essential to detection, investigation, and prevention. While large-scale technical and legal measures at the state level are necessary, the authors argue that criminalists should also prioritize a multidimensional analysis of the communicative component of ICT-enabled crimes. The study finds that the prevailing media narrative that «anyone can become a victim of fraud» is counterproductive: it demoralizes citizens and hampers the identification and investigation of such offences. The paper recommends revising approaches to studying victims’ identities and developing targeted, specialized investigative methods for particular categories of ICT-enabled crimes in the context of digital transformation.

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