en

Law Journal of the National Academy of Internal Affairs

  • Received 04.06.2026,
  • Revised 05.09.2026,
  • Accepted 29.09.2026
  • Published 01.10.2026
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Volume 16, No. 3, 2026
  • victim; acquisition of property; deception; unauthorised access; abuse of trust
  • https://doi.org/10.63341/naia-chasopis/3.2026.74
  • Pages 74-88

The growing use of information and communication technologies in fraudulent offences makes their criminal-law qualification more difficult, particularly when these acts have to be distinguished from related criminal offences. The study therefore aimed to determine criteria for assessing fraud committed through information and communication technologies and to establish how these acts should be separated from related criminal offences. The research used the formal legal method, analysis of judicial practice, and conceptual modelling. The analysis considered the criminal-law characteristics of fraud and how these characteristics appear when information and communication technologies are used. Digital tools do not change the basic legal characteristics of fraud. They change the practical way in which deception, abuse of trust, and transfer of property take place. The judicial decisions examined in the study showed how fraud can be distinguished from theft, unauthorised interference with information systems, unlawful use of payment instruments, and use of another person’s identification data. For criminal-law qualification, the fact that digital technology was used is not decisive. More important are the role of that technology in obtaining property, the victim’s volition, and the way the property left the victim’s possession. The study identified five criteria for this differentiation: the victim’s volition, the reason for the transfer of property, the function of the digital tool, the time and manner in which property was obtained, and the offender’s initial intent. An algorithm for qualifying digital forms of fraud was proposed, involving the sequential establishment of the digital act, the informational influence, its effect on the victim’s property-related decision, the manner in which the property left the victim’s possession, the function of the digital tool, and the initial intent. The results may be used by investigators, prosecutors, and courts in the criminal-law qualification of digital forms of fraud and in preparing methodological guidance on distinguishing fraud from related criminal offences

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