Legalization of Criminally Obtained Property: A Hackneyed Phrase and the Improvement of the Legislation

Introduction: the paper examines the current situation in the field of countering the shadow economy and the legalization of material assets. The authors argue that, to date, the fight against this type of crime, despite all the measures taken, aimed at creating conditions that complicate the process of legitimizing criminal assets and at identifying and bringing to justice the perpetrators, is not effective enough. In the process of identifying and qualifying socially dangerous acts related to money legalization, many problems arise, including the ambiguity of interpretations of the legal elements of the type of crime in question. The paper reveals the general characteristics of the legalization of property obtained by criminal means and formulates proposals concerning the clarification of their content. The purpose of the study is to consider the specifics of the legalization of property obtained by criminal means and formulate qualification rules that allow distinguishing legalization from other offenses. Methods: by applying the formal logical method of researching the legislation and materials of judicial practice and the synthesis and analysis of doctrinal positions, the authors have formulated the conclusions that are reflected in the paper. Results: the officially published statistical data analyzed in the paper indicate the prevalence of legalization of crime items today, on the one hand, and the latent nature of this criminal activity, on the other. In order to increase the effectiveness of countering the legalization of property obtained by criminal means, the authors’ definition of the concept of this criminal act is proposed. Conclusions: countering the shadow economy will be more effective if we consider the legalization of criminally obtained property as a type of organized crime, which should be distinguished from making a transaction with criminally obtained property for personal purposes and not for the purpose of legalization it and implementing criminal business.