Money Laundering

There are many definitions of money laundering. Yet, no matter how diverse they might be, such as that money laundering is an apparent legalisation of criminal assets, or those more complex ones such as the definition we can  find in the Council of Europe Warsaw Convention, which was implemented in the Serbian Criminal Code, the professionals and practitioners will agree on one thing, and it is that money laundering is a process of concealing and disguising illicit origin of money or assets acquired through crime.

 

If the property gain was acquired through crime, the perpetrator will look for ways to use the funds and avoid being spotted by the authorities. This is why they conduct a series of transactions aiming to present the proceeds as being legally obtained.

 

Thus the money laundering process has the aim of disguising the proceeds of criminal acts to allow criminals to use them in the legitimate economy. Corruption and organised crime, such as drugs trafficking, arms sales and human trafficking, produce huge amounts of such proceeds and laundering them can distort the economy and threaten the integrity of the financial system. 

 

 

More on:

 

Money laundering typologies

Money laundering indicators