Money laundering, political corruption and public function. A new criminal aggravation under the European Union

Abstract

The “Fifth Directive”, Directive 2018/843 (known as AMLD5) incorporated new measures to strengthen systems for prevention of money-laundering and terrorist financing in relation to the aggravated type of laundering of corruption proceeds and persons with a political presence and/or persons trusted or trusted /have entrusted public functions. We analyze here some of the technical issues, of positive and political criminal law, derived from the transposition into Spanish legislation and the consequent reform of the Spanish Criminal Code through Organic Law 6/2021, of 28 April that introduced, among other amendments, essentially a new circumstance of aggravation in the last subparagraph of paragraph 1 of Art. 301 of the mentioned Spanish Criminal Code.