Member Article

Law 25,246, enacted in 2000, was the first to regulate both criminal money laundering (by means of inclusions of specific money laundering and terrorism financing offences in the Argentine Criminal Code (ACC) and antimoney laundering provisions. Law 25,246 has been amended several times, most importantly in 2011 by Law 26,683, which, apart from several changes to the anti-money laundering sections of the law, included a new chapter to the ACC called ‘Crimes against the Economic and Financial Order’, where money laundering is included among other financial crimes. Regarding money laundering, section 303 states that the offence of money laundering shall be committed when a person: converts, transfers, administrates, sells, encumbers, disguises or in any other way introduces into the market assets which proceed from a criminally illicit act, with the possible consequence that the origin of said original or any subsequent assets acquires the appearance of legal origin. This section also penalises the person who receives money or other assets from the commission of a crime in order to apply them in any of the described transactions. Section 304, in turn, sets forth specific sanctions for cases in which money laundering was committed on behalf, with the intervention or to the benefit of a legal entity. As for anti-money laundering, Law 25,246, as amended, sets forth a list of ‘compelled subjects’ (which involve both public and private entities, as well as natural persons) that are obligated to, among other duties, inform suspicious operations to the Financial Information Unit (UIF). These compelled subjects have three main obligations:

• know-your-client (KYC);

• to report suspicious operations to the UIF; and

•no tipping-off. Money laundering.

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