THE POSSIBILITIES OF FORENSIC EXPERTISE IN THE INVESTIGATION OF ILLEGAL WEAPONS TRAFFICKING

Abstract

The term of “illegal weapons trafficking” includes a set of offenses, which are provided for by fourteen articles of the Сriminal Сode of Ukraine. The indicated crimes include the following actions with weapons: moving across the customs border of Ukraine outside customs control or with concealment from customs control; abduction, appropriation, extortion, taking possession by fraud or abuse of office; illegal possession, storage, acquisition, transfer, sale, manufacturing, repair; processing, falsification, deletion or change of marking; careless storage; violation of the rules of storage, use, accounting, transportation, handling; illicit traffic on an aircraft; intentional or careless destruction or damage; loss or damage; development, production, acquisition, storage, distribution, transportation. All of these offenses combine one crime subject, which is a weapon, including ammunition, explosives and devices.

The investigation of these crimes calls for the use of specialized knowledge in the form of forensic expertise. The forensic expertise of the weapon, traces and conditions of its use, which allows to determine the crime subject, is mandatory. The variety of weapons types and methods of committing crimes determines the conduct of other forensic expertise. The examination of documents is carried out in the forensic expertise of handwriting and technical expertise of documents. The oral speech of the participants in the crime is examine in the linguistic expertise of oral speech and the expertise of video and audio records. Trasology expertise provides an opportunity to identify destroyed relief marks on weapons, the belonging of individual parts to one copy of the weapon, the presence of fingerprints on the weapon. With the help of a portrait expertise, a person whose appearance is fixed on a photo or video is identified. Expertise of materials, substances and products is assigned to identify the materials from which weapons were made, as well as the detection of micro particles of explosives. Art expertise is conducted to determine the historical and cultural value of antiquarian weapons.