The Criminalization of Money Laundering

A Comparative Legal Study of Indonesia and the United Kingdom

Abstract

This study aims to analyze and compare the construction of the criminalization of money laundering offenses in Indonesia and the United Kingdom, as well as the limits of criminal liability established through each legal regime. This study employs normative legal research using statutory, conceptual, and comparative approaches. The results show that Indonesia and the United Kingdom share a common objective of severing the connection between the proceeds of crime and legitimate economic activities, but employ different techniques of conceptualization. Indonesia, through Articles 607 and 608 of the National Criminal Code, as well as the previous framework under Law Number 8 of 2010, places assets derived from criminal offenses, acts involving such assets, and subjective circumstances in the form of knowledge or suspicion as important elements of criminalization. The United Kingdom, through the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, particularly sections 327, 328, and 329, uses the concept of criminal property as the central point connecting criminal conduct with acts of concealment, disguise, arrangement, acquisition, use, or possession of property. The comparison demonstrates that the distinction between predicate offenses and criminal property constitutes a difference in the conceptual technique for characterizing the criminal nature of property, rather than a difference in the objective of combating money laundering. The findings indicate that the limits of criminal liability in both systems should be based on the connection between property of a criminal character, acts involving such property, and mens rea, while being controlled by the principles of legality, legal certainty, clarity of the elements of the offense, and proof of the subjective circumstances of the perpetrator. Such a construction establishes a balance between the effectiveness of combating money laundering and the protection of fundamental principles of criminal law.