On December 23, 2019, the judge of the Ikryaninsky District Court of the Astrakhan Region sentenced the defendant A.S. Frolov. punishable by a fine in the amount of 100,000 (one hundred thousand) rubles. The defendant was charged with paragraph “a” of Part 3 of Article 243.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation: Illegal search and (or) seizure of archaeological objects from burial sites. Material evidence was also used in favor of the state: an HF COIL metal detector and a garden shovel.
Author's note : At first I myself was surprised what this new model of metal detector was, and then I realized))) HF COIL is not a metal detector, but a coil for the XP Deus metal detector. It turns out that when the suspect was detained on the spot, only the rod and the reel were confiscated.
What is the essence of the criminal case? (The link to the court verdict is clickable)
Since the accused fully admitted his guilt and actively cooperated with the investigation, the materials of the criminal case were compiled on the basis of the sincere testimony of A.S. Frolov.
On August 17, 2019, from 11:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Frolov A.S. carried out a search for archaeological objects on the territory of the cultural heritage site of federal significance “Devil's Settlement” located in close proximity to the village of. Yamnoye. Accused Frolov A.S. admitted that he knew in advance about the location of a cultural heritage site in the area. And, the initial purpose of his visit was to search and seize archaeological objects on the territory of the archaeological site.
In order to search for archaeological objects, Frolov A.S. dug three holes no more than 25 centimeters deep. However, no archaeological objects were discovered by him. How exactly and under what circumstances Frolov A.S. was detained, the court decision is not indicated in the materials. What is known is that the accused fully agreed with the charges brought against him and, with the assistance of a lawyer, petitioned to consider his case in court in a special manner, without a trial.
The sentence is a fine and confiscation of the metal detector (reel with rod). Material evidence in the case: a car shovel, 43 coins, metal fragments, a fragment of a brass sleeve, a fragment of a copper rod, a fragment of a bronze cast product in the form of a rod… (and so on, another half a kilo of different colored garbage) should be returned to the convicted Andrei Sergeevich Frolov.
The photo was taken from the archive of hobby-detecting.ru and has no relation to the criminal case described.
Conclusions: Personally, I consider this resolution CORRECT and absolutely JUSTIFIED. It is understandable that the accused cooperated with the investigation. Under this criminal article, the maximum punishment is up to 2 years of criminal term, or a fine of up to one million rubles. So, we can consider that Frolov was very lucky.
The only thing that I don’t understand about this situation is why this court case was not given wide publicity and information in the media? The process had to be demonstrative with maximum audience coverage. So that everyone who plans to dig at archaeological sites would understand and understand how this may ultimately come back to haunt them.
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I wish everyone good luck and recommend that you know and follow the law of the Russian Federation.