[Fnoord]

> because most probably they are related to some crime groups (someone takes away most of donated money from them)

Why is that "most probably"?

Btw, you can give other things than money to beggars as well. Bread or a cup of coffee, for example.

[aquadrop]

Because that's how it is here (Russia). It's wide spread scheme - crime groups "cover" some territory (usually where there's a lot of walk traffic) and take money from all the beggars which stay on that territory.

Here you can see how beggar gives money to his criminal supervisor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TrRI1QyQ8g

There's a lot of info about it on youtube, but it's mostly in Russian. Beggars in good places can get 2-3 average salaries per month and most of those money goes to criminals. It's really ugly criminal business. As an example - there's such thing as "renting" small babies - because women with babies can gather more money. They drug babies so they would lie still in the hand of beggar women. So giving money to beggars is often same as giving funds to criminals here.

[Fnoord]

Thanks for the info, it had not even occurred to me that you could possibly be from Russia. I'm curious, do you agree giving a bread to a homeless person (in general, or in Russia specifically) makes sense?