- Статьи
- Economy
- "Shadows" disappear at noon: Russia may increase penalties for illegal entrepreneurship
"Shadows" disappear at noon: Russia may increase penalties for illegal entrepreneurship
In Russia, penalties for illegal business activities may be increased. For conducting business without registration or a license, it is proposed to fine 1.5 million rubles if the act caused major damage. If the law is passed, this will be a noticeable increase in responsibility compared to what it was before, experts say. However, the effectiveness of fines will depend on the actual scale of illegal activity and increased control over the quality of investigations, lawyers warn. What is the danger of illegal business — in the material of Izvestia.
Strengthening responsibility
The State Duma Committee on State Construction and Legislation recommended that the lower house of parliament adopt in the first reading a bill initiated by the government of the Russian Federation to increase fines for economic crimes. In particular, it was proposed to increase the fine under Article 171 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Illegal entrepreneurship" to 1.5 million rubles for carrying out business activities without registration or a license if this act caused major damage to citizens, organizations or the state.
In general, the draft federal law provides for an increase in fines for committing several types of economic crimes. The explanatory note to the document clarifies that fines, according to the statistics of the Supreme Court, are the most sought-after punishment for such types of crimes.
In the period from 2021 to 2023, more than 50% of those convicted were sentenced to fines under articles on economic crimes. The draft law emphasizes that the size of fines tends to increase, increasingly approaching the upper thresholds. For comparison, in 2018, penalties in excess of 500 thousand rubles were awarded to only 0.6% of convicts. In 2023, the number of such citizens increased to 4%. The volume of fines awarded as an additional punishment in the form of imprisonment is also increasing.
The bill provides for updating the size of fines in 35 economic crimes by the level of inflation, the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation reported in an interview with Izvestia.
"The size of the fines will be adapted to modern socio—economic realities, and the punishment will correspond to the nature and degree of public danger of the acts," the department explained.
The Ministry recalled that some types of fines for economic crimes have not been reviewed taking into account inflationary processes since 2003, which is why they are not a sufficient deterrent to prevent violations of the law.
"The proposed changes will help maintain a balance between the preventive function of the criminal law and the need for its liberalization in the economic sphere," the Ministry of Justice is convinced.
Responsibility for illegal business today ranges from heavy fines to compulsory labor and imprisonment. An aggravating circumstance is considered to be causing major (over 3.5 million rubles) damage to citizens, organizations or the state. However, in reality, the benefit received by criminals turns out to be much greater.
For example, in Primorye in June 2025, a verdict was passed against the organizer and members of the criminal community. It specialized in money laundering, but its members were found guilty under several articles, including paragraphs "a" and "b" of Part 2 of Article 171 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation ("Illegal entrepreneurship committed by an organized group involving the extraction of income on a particularly large scale"). The income from the illegal activities of this criminal community was estimated at hundreds of millions of rubles. Taking into account the guilty pleas of the defendants and other articles of the Criminal Code, all of them received real terms.
In the Sakmarsky district of the Orenburg region, a criminal group organized the illegal extraction of a sand-gravel mixture. For several years, community members have been actively attracting machinery and workers by selling the extracted building materials at a bargain price. The damage to the state amounted to more than 26 million rubles. In March 2025, the court found the band members guilty. The organizer was sentenced to two years of forced labor withholding 10% of his salary to the state income. The remaining members of the organized criminal group received fines ranging from 200,000 to 250,000 rubles.
Members of another criminal group were convicted of a similar crime committed in the same area in August 2023. At that time, it was also a question of a sand-gravel mixture extracted without a license. The damage caused by the actions of the criminals amounted to 30 million rubles.
And in April 2024, the verdict in the case of illegal entrepreneurship was passed in Penza. A woman who organized the issuance of loans secured by real estate was found guilty. If the borrower did not repay the funds on time, she collected them through the court, also receiving interest and penalties. In some cases, it was about the transfer of ownership of real estate. The total amount of income received in this way amounted to more than 80 million rubles. The woman was also convicted under Article 159.2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation "Fraud in receiving payments."
The implicit danger
From the point of view of criminal law, illegal business activity refers to crimes in the economic sphere, criminal cases for which are aimed at protecting the established business procedure, recalls Ilya Rusyaev, lawyer, business consultant, founder of the Rusyaev Club business community.
— The state proceeds from the fact that entrepreneurship is allowed only if basic conditions are met. First of all, registration and obtaining a license in those areas where it is mandatory. When the activity is conducted systematically, focused on making a profit and at the same time bypassing these requirements, the mechanism of responsibility is activated," explains the interlocutor of Izvestia.
Such crimes are classified as "white collar crimes," says Sean Betrozov, a lawyer at the Moscow Chamber of Lawyers and a member of the Russian Bar Association. They are committed through abuse of economic mechanisms or legislative requirements.
"The state classifies such acts as criminal offenses because they undermine the economic order and cause significant harm to participants in economic relations," the expert explains.
In fact, illegal entrepreneurship is an activity that looks like an ordinary business, but is not legally one, says Alexey Gavrishev, lawyer and managing partner of AVG Legal.
"Classic examples are pseudo—construction companies, "investment" projects without permits, "gray" financial services, medical or educational activities without a license," he lists.
The hidden threat
The key importance is not the absence of a registration document, but the consequences for citizens, companies or the state, Alexey Gavrishev believes.
"This rule most often affects ordinary people in the role of victims — they are the ones who suffer losses when they turn to formally non—existent entrepreneurs, from whom there is nothing to recover," the lawyer emphasizes.
By cooperating with illegal businesses, citizens are deprived of protection from the law, says Sean Betrozov.
-- Unlicensed or unregistered businesses often do without proper government oversight. For citizens, this may mean a lower quality of goods and services, or even a danger to life and health," the lawyer warns. However, if health or property damage is caused as a result of the activities of such a company, it will be much more difficult to recover compensation.
In addition, an illegal entrepreneur may simply disappear without fulfilling his obligations, and the affected citizens will be left without money and without the ability to easily bring the perpetrators to justice, the Izvestia interlocutor adds.
Legal businesses, in turn, suffer from unfair competition, Betrozov believes. Shadow competitors save on taxes, fees and other mandatory expenses, due to which they can dump or make excess profits.
— Illegal business undermines a healthy business environment. It interferes with normal competition and reduces the quality of the market for services and goods. The reputation of industries also suffers when scandals with fraudulent companies or one-day enterprises break out, consumer confidence in this segment of business, even in bona fide participants, decreases, the expert is convinced.
Illegal entrepreneurship also damages the state, as the budget does not receive enough taxes that could have been used for social needs.
Major damage
At the same time, the practice of recent years shows that criminal cases on illegal entrepreneurship are usually associated with multimillion-dollar sums, Ilya Rusyaev points out. The legislation sets a threshold for liability under Article 171 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation — it occurs if major damage has been caused, emphasizes Sean Betrozov. Now it means an amount in excess of 3.5 million rubles.
— That is why there are few such cases, and each of them requires a complex economic analysis and proof of the causal relationship between the violation and the consequences, — says Rusyaev.
These may be cases when citizens or organizations lost money by paying an illegal supplier of goods, who then defaulted when the company operated without a license and caused significant material damage to someone: the builders did not finish the work for several million rubles and disappeared, or the pyramid scheme collected money without registration and went bankrupt, leaving depositors with losses., provides examples of Betroses.
"Therefore, a fine of 1.5 million rubles against the background of actual harm often looks even moderate, especially when compared with the turnover of such schemes," Alexey Gavrishev believes.
Call to account
The discussion about the amount of the fine rests on the ratio of the sanction and the actual scale of illegal activity, Ilya Rusyaev notes. The proposed amount is a significant tightening compared to the current measures, according to Sean Betrozov.
— Previously, an illegal entrepreneur risked relatively small losses when caught, but the new financial sanctions will become much more painful. For small and medium—sized illegal businesses, such a prospect can become a serious deterrent from violating the law, because a potential fine can put an end to all illegally obtained income and lead to large personal debts," the lawyer draws attention.
However, such a fine still does not guarantee the absolute eradication of illegal entrepreneurship, because much depends on the business and the amount of illegal profits, he clarifies. In large schemes, a fine of 1.5 million rubles is rarely comparable to the turnover, Rusyaev believes.
— In such cases, the threat of a fine alone may not be enough for a person to abandon criminal intent. For large—scale fraudsters, the prospect of imprisonment or confiscation of property is much more frightening than a one-time payment of a fine," says Betrozov.
The real significance is the totality of the consequences of criminal prosecution, including procedural restrictions, reputational losses and the actual business shutdown, Rusyaev confirms.
— If the detection of such crimes remains low, and the investigation drags on for years, even a large fine is perceived as an acceptable business risk. The effect appears when a fine works in conjunction with the inevitability of liability, confiscation of income, additional taxes and quick recovery of damages," Alexey Gavrishev agrees.
Without strengthening the control and quality of the investigation, the increase in fines will not change the situation, he is convinced.
"The state has given a signal that "gray business" is no longer considered a minor offense, but the real result will depend not on the amount specified in the law, but on how often and how consistently this rule will be applied in practice," the lawyer summarizes.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
