Spălarea banilor. Noțiunea și proba situației premisă

The autonomous nature of the money laundering offence was widely debated, both when international instruments did not provide a concrete answer in this respect, and after such clarification appeared, requiring the intervention of the High Court of Cassation and Justice at national level to settle the issue (§1). This further paved the way for interpretation of what is meant by "proceeds of crime", focusing on the meaning of "crime" and, implicitly, on the proof requirements for this predicate situation when there is no prior or concurrent conviction for a predicate offence. Thus, three schools of thought have emerged on the matter, one to the effect that the term "offence" is the one described by Art. 15 para. (1) of the Criminal Code on the essential features of the offence, one to the effect that it must be understood in the light of the constituent elements of the predicate offence, and another to the effect that the term is, in this case, sui-generis, a view with which we agree (§2) and which we will outline in the light of the coordinates that may be taken into account when deciding on the existence of the illicit origin of the property, as established both in case law and by reference to the Spanish legal system (§3).