The traditional forms of criminal conduct, which were essentially related to offences against individual interests, have given way in recent decades to new, more complex forms of criminal activity whose main objective is to obtain high economic benefits through more developed organised criminal structures that in many instances cross state borders. To effectively exploit the economic returns obtained through unlawful conduct, it is necessary to remove from them any trace of illicit origin and make them appear legitimate in order to covertly introduce them into the legitimate economic circuit. It can be said that the introduction of the proceeds of unlawful activities into the legitimate economic system is the culmination of the criminal plan of economic crime. It has been established that one of the most efficient strategies to combat economic crime is to deprive the perpetrators of the high profits obtained from their criminal activities. The fight against money laundering thus constitutes an efficient means to deter and eradicate these new forms of criminal conduct on a large scale. In the same way that the economy has become more globalised in recent decades, the phenomenon of money laundering has also seen a growing tendency towards internationalization. This has been clearly recognised by the international community who has responded with supranational measures to deal with this type of offence in a comprehensive manner, creating specialist entities and drafting increasingly more severe regulations on the subject of money laundering. The Spanish legislator has also progressively implemented more and more stringent legislation, which in the criminal field has resulted in a gradual broadening of the scope of the money laundering offence, thus setting a paradigmatic example of a process that SILVA SÁNCHEZ has described as “the expansion of criminal law”..
