UrBC, Yekaterinburg, March 14, 2016. Over 700 complaints relating to debt collection agencies’ actions were submitted to Sverdlovsk Region’s police last year, head of the Criminal Investigations Department at the Russian Internal Affairs Ministry’s local division Evgeniy Logvinsky said at a press conference.

Remarkably, the number of complaints remained under 200 only one year earlier, in 2014.

According to Logvinsky, most complaints have to do with collectors’ threats, damage to private property, personal insults, slander, and petty crimes.

‘Despite the growing number of locals’ complaints, only one criminal lawsuit, with charges of unsanctioned action (Article 330 of the Russian Criminal Code), was actually instituted,’ Logvinsky said.

He also said most of complaints concerned debt collection agencies which were liaised with micro-financing organizations.