Smart Engines and the law firm INTELLECT released a report on the rise of document fraud. МВД-registered crimes involving forged documents increased by 338% year-on-year, reaching a seven-year high. The illegal market for fake identity documents is estimated at a minimum of 2.6 ₽ billion.
In 2025, Russian banks reported losses of 28.6 ₽ billion due to external fraud, where forged documents were used for credit applications and account takeovers. One documented case involved a stolen identity used to obtain a SIM card, leading to a theft of 4.45 ₽ million.
Data for 2025 shows 10 942 convictions under Article 327 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, with 5 408 of those being citizens of CIS countries. Passports and residence permits from CIS nations accounted for 18% of identified forgeries.
Smart Engines offers the Sherlock anti-fraud platform to combat these threats. The system analyzes over 600 authenticity features and supports more than 5 000 document templates. It performs local processing without external data transmission, checking NFC chips and physical security elements.
