Within the framework of the examination of the cassation appeal of the Prosecutor General's Office, the Court of Cassation made a landmark and landmark decision on August 28, 2026, regarding the features of the criminal offense of participating in or involving a criminal subculture group under Article 324 of the Criminal Code, also subjecting the criminal offenses related to the criminal subculture to a systematic analysis.
The Prosecutor's Office reports this.
"Interpreting the specifics of the fight against organized crime and criminal subculture, in particular in the light of international convention provisions and the precedent positions of the European Court of Human Rights, the Court of Cassation defined the main features of a criminal subculture group or "gangster world" and noted that a criminal subculture group, or the "gangster world" used by the legislator as a synonym for this concept, are essentially identical and refer to the same phenomenon from the point of view of legislative regulation. Therefore, within the framework of the above-mentioned legal norm, a criminal subculture should be considered not as a grouping of individual groups or groups, but as the entire “criminal world” as a unified system with its informal hierarchy, authority and influence, which operates in accordance with its established and recognized rules of conduct.
It is characterized by “solving problems” through violence, intimidation and coercion. Moreover, the existence of the “criminal world”, as a well-known fact, does not need to be proven in the framework of criminal proceedings.
In other words, the body conducting the proceedings is not obliged to substantiate and prove the existence of the “thug world” as a system carrying a criminal subculture in each specific case.
Regarding the crime of being involved in the implementation of the goals pursued by a group carrying a criminal subculture, the Court of Cassation recorded that it is manifested in the form of a person who is not a member of the group carrying a criminal subculture being involved in the goals pursued by the group in any way, contributing to their implementation.
In other words, the above-mentioned persons are outside the criminal hierarchy, do not join or participate in the group carrying a criminal subculture (“thug world”), they simply have an auxiliary involvement in the implementation of its goals.
The Court of Cassation emphasized that although sending parcels to penitentiary institutions is, in fact, permissible by law and cannot in itself be a basis for considering participation or involvement in a criminal subculture group to be confirmed, it may nevertheless have some significance in assessing the above circumstances, taking into account the circle of persons to whom the parcels are sent, their frequency, as well as the nature of the relationship between them and the sender (for example, they are not a close relative of the sender), etc.
The Court of Cassation has recorded that a person carrying a criminal subculture undertakes the solution of a specific issue not as a private person, but as a bearer of the morals of a criminal subculture, conditioning his actions within the framework of the ideology and goals pursued by the given phenomenon, which actions are outside the framework of relations directed against property.
The decision of the Court of Cassation is here," the statement says.
