The essence of money laundering – selected security issues

Abstrakt

Combating the crime of money laundering is of key importance for stabilizing the economy of every democratic state. Threats posed by the introduction of huge amounts of money from criminal activities into circulation are extremely high and pose a
direct threat to the financial economy of the state, which in fact leads to its destabilization. The scale of undertakings undertaken on the international arena confirms the huge profits made by criminal groups from their illegal activities. In order to combat
this practice properly, it is necessary to recognize this phenomenon at an early stage. For this purpose, specialized bodies have been established whose task is to identify threats related to money laundering and transfer this information to law enforcement authorities, which will take action to identify the criminal group. In accordance with international standards, the legislator has criminalized the phenomenon of money laundering, as only the involvement of law enforcement agencies ensures the proper fight against this practice. The mere penalization of criminal law provisions is not sufficient. Due to the fact that law enforcement authorities themselves do not have information about suspicious transactions that may bear the hallmarks of money laundering. It is reasonable to emphasize the importance of cooperation not only between the authorities within the state but also on the international arena. The article refers not only to the criminal policy in the field of money laundering, but also emphasizes the role of cooperation between the relevant institutions, which enables the effective fight against this practice. In connection with the above, the aim of the article is to analyze the phenomenon of money laundering from the perspective of the criminalization of provisions that are the basis for the effective fight of law enforcement agencies. To present the intended goal, methods of literature research were used with an emphasis on the Pro-Quest, Scopus and Science-Direct databases and public data.