Updated 07/09/2024
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Version from: 19/05/2024
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Article 3 - Money laundering offences

Article 3

Money laundering offences

1.  

Member States shall take the necessary measures to ensure that the following conduct, when committed intentionally, is punishable as a criminal offence:

(a) 

the conversion or transfer of property, knowing that such property is derived from criminal activity, for the purpose of concealing or disguising the illicit origin of the property or of assisting any person who is involved in the commission of such an activity to evade the legal consequences of that person’s action;

(b) 

the concealment or disguise of the true nature, source, location, disposition, movement, rights with respect to, or ownership of, property, knowing that such property is derived from criminal activity;

(c) 

the acquisition, possession or use of property, knowing at the time of receipt, that such property was derived from criminal activity.

2.  
Member States may take the necessary measures to ensure that the conduct referred to in paragraph 1 is punishable as a criminal offence where the offender suspected or ought to have known that the property was derived from criminal activity.
3.  

Member States shall take the necessary measures to ensure that:

(a) 

a prior or simultaneous conviction for the criminal activity from which the property was derived is not a prerequisite for a conviction for the offences referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2;

(b) 

a conviction for the offences referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2 is possible where it is established that the property was derived from a criminal activity, without it being necessary to establish all the factual elements or all circumstances relating to that criminal activity, including the identity of the perpetrator;

(c) 

the offences referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2 extend to property derived from conduct that occurred on the territory of another Member State or of a third country, where that conduct would constitute a criminal activity had it occurred domestically.

4.  
In the case of point (c) of paragraph 3 of this Article, Member States may further require that the relevant conduct constitutes a criminal offence under the national law of the other Member State or of the third country where that conduct was committed, except where that conduct constitutes one of the offences referred to in points (a) to (e) and (h) of point (1) of Article 2 and as defined in the applicable Union law.
5.  
Member States shall take the necessary measures to ensure that the conduct referred to in points (a) and (b) of paragraph 1 is punishable as a criminal offence when committed by persons who committed, or were involved in, the criminal activity from which the property was derived.