Money laundering lawyer in Alicante

What the offence of money laundering is

Money laundering means giving a lawful appearance to money or assets that come from a crime. It is governed by article 301 of the Criminal Code (Código Penal), which punishes anyone who acquires, possesses, uses, converts or transfers assets knowing that they originate from criminal activity, or carries out any other act to conceal that origin or to help the person who committed the crime evade its consequences.

There are three points worth being clear about from the outset:

• The underlying offence can be any crime. The money does not have to come from drug trafficking: it is enough that it comes from criminal activity, such as fraud, tax fraud or theft.
• You can launder what you yourself obtained. Article 301 refers to assets derived from a crime “committed by the person themselves or by any third party”. This is known as self-laundering (autoblanqueo).
• The underlying offence does not have to have been committed in Spain. Paragraph 4 allows money laundering to be punished even if the acts were committed wholly or partly abroad.

Concealing or disguising the true nature, origin, location, destination or ownership of those assets is also money laundering (article 301.2).

Common cases that come to our office

Most people who call us do not see themselves as money launderers. These are frequent situations:

• Money mules. Someone offers you money or a supposed job in exchange for receiving transfers into your account and forwarding them on. That money usually comes from online fraud. If this has happened to you, also read our page on cybercrime.
• Purchases of property, vehicles or businesses paid for with funds whose origin cannot be accounted for.
• Front men (testaferros): putting someone else’s assets, companies or accounts in your name.
• Unexplained cash movements, split deposits or money transfers abroad.
• Relatives of a person under investigation for drug trafficking or economic crime who have received or used that person’s assets.

In many of these cases the key issue at trial is not whether the money passed through your account, but what you knew.

Penalties for money laundering

In addition, the judge may impose special disqualification from the profession or trade for one to three years and closure of the premises (article 301.1). If the acts are committed by a business owner, financial intermediary, public official or other professional in the course of their work, article 303 adds special disqualification for three to ten years. Professionals who are obliged entities under anti-money laundering regulations receive the penalty in its upper half (article 302.1).

Companies can also be convicted of money laundering (article 302.2). We explain this on our corporate criminal compliance page.

How we defend you

Money laundering proceedings tend to be lengthy, with extensive police and banking reports. A skilled technical defence from day one makes the difference.

1. We study the case before you make any statement. If you have been summoned as a suspect, we prepare you for questioning or consider whether it is better not to give a statement yet. We explain this on our page about being summoned as a suspect.
2. We reconstruct the lawful origin of the money: payslips, inheritances, sales, loans, business activity. Every justified transaction weakens the prosecution’s case.
3. We challenge knowledge. If you did not know the money came from a crime, there is no intentional money laundering. We analyse whether, at most, the case could be one of negligence rather than intent.
4. We check that the underlying offence has been proved and that the police and expert reports do not treat mere suspicion as established fact.
5. We apply for unjustified account freezes and seizures to be lifted and protect assets that have nothing to do with the case.

Prison, criminal record and confiscation

Will I go to prison? It depends on the final sentence. Article 80 of the Criminal Code allows prison sentences of up to two years to be suspended if it is your first offence and the other requirements are met, including having paid the civil liability and complied with the confiscation order, or undertaking to do so. In negligent money laundering, where the maximum penalty is two years, suspension is a real possibility.

Confiscation (decomiso). The proceeds of money laundering are confiscated (article 301.5). In addition, money laundering is one of the offences to which extended confiscation under article 127 bis applies: the court can confiscate other assets of the convicted person if, on the basis of well-founded objective evidence, it considers that they come from criminal activity and their lawful origin is not proved.

Criminal record. A conviction gives rise to a criminal record (antecedentes penales), which can be expunged once the periods in article 136 have passed without reoffending. We can help you through our criminal record expungement service.

Limitation period. With a maximum penalty of six years, intentional money laundering becomes time-barred after ten years (article 131).

If you are the injured party

If you have been the victim of fraud and your money has been moved through third-party accounts, the proceedings against those who received and laundered it may be your way of recovering it. Joining the case as a private prosecutor (acusación particular) allows you to request investigative measures, propose tracing the funds and claim repayment and compensation. We explain how on our private prosecution page.