MONEY LAUNDERING AND CRIMINAL LAW PRINCIPLES

Abstract

This paper draws attention to the legal excesses to which the literal application of the current configuration of the crime of money laundering may lead to, as it is configured as a type of supra-crime of an economic nature. This is a consequence of the deficient technique employed in its legal definition, which is itself a symptom of a questionable increase in the use of criminal law in this field, particularly since the wording of article 301 of the Spanish Criminal Code was introduced by Organic Law 5/2010. The result is a criminal offence without limits that violates legal principles and generates unacceptable punitive excesses, and a use and abuse of the criminal offence of money laundering that oversteps the requirements of international agreements and that must be corrected