The first National Conference on the Prevention of Money Laundering and Tax Fraud took place in Granada on the 11th and 12th June, and was organized by the University of Granada Chair – BROSETA “Control of Tax Fraud and Prevention of Money Laundering”.

The Conference, which saw the participation of more than 100 experts from various fields (lawyers, tax consultants, economists, directors of financial institutions, members of the judiciary, prosecutors, the tax agency and state lawyers), was opened by the President of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia (TSJA), D. Lorenzo del Río, who warned during his presentation of the ever increasing sophistication of money laundering especially in relation to international networks of drug trafficking and terrorism. The President of the TSJA stressed the existence of adequate mechanisms to combat money laundering, something which, in turn, he recognized is more and more complicated by the rise of cybercrime: “large international transactions are made today by cyber-crime, which require very specialized security forces”.

Del Rio, who put Spain on a par with the rest of European countries in the fight against money laundering stressed the need for very specialized professional prosecutors, he said that since the legislative reform adopted in 2010, both Spain and the international community have tools to justify longer sentences for the perpetrators of such crimes.

The Congress was completed with various round tables focused on the nature and procedure of fraud and tax crime, within the scope of compliance in the field of money laundering and labour connections related to tax fraud and money laundering, among other aspects.

In relation to the area of compliance, Luis Trigo, Managing Partner of BROSETA, broke down the changes introduced by the recently published EU Directive 2015/849 (known as “the fourth directive”), concerning the prevention of the use of the financial system for money laundering or the financing of terrorism. Trigo also reflected on the figure of the tax advisor as an essential figure, and the parallels that this professional (without specific regulation in Spain) have with that of lawyers, legal professionals who may be also considered as essential.

The second day of the Congress was opened by the Justice of the Criminal Division of the Supreme Court, D. Antonio del Moral, who explained the latest trends of case law on the crime of money laundering, while the closing was by D. Jesús García Calderón, Senior Prosecutor of the Superior Court of Justice of Andalusia, who dealt with, from his point of view, the problem of financial corruption and new legal property protected by criminal law, emphasizing the necessary characterization of the elements that have defined corruption, and not only the opacity or hiding of offences, but their relation to the public authorities and even as a form of organized crime.