The present Directive serves as a preventive tool against money laundering through Criminal Law. Supported by the subsidiarity principle as outlined in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union, it aims to subject the crime of money laundering in Member States to effective criminal sanctions, while also standardizing the concepts related to this crime and judicial cooperation mechanisms.

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The concept of money laundering began to be used in the early 1970s by the U.S. media, due to the scandal caused by Watergate.

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On September 20 of 2020, the FinCEN Files were made public, a journalistic investigation following the leak of more than 2,000 reports from FinCEN’s database. These reports reveal transactions and account movements that suggest money laundering activities. However, today we want to focus not on this journalistic investigation, but on analyzing what FinCEN is.

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Money laundering has its most recent international origin in the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances, held in Vienna on December 20, 1988, and the Principles Declaration of the Basel Committee on Prevention of the Use of the Banking System for the Laundering of Funds from Criminal Activities, also from 1988.

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States have various legal and administrative systems to frame measures aimed at combating money laundering, resulting in different actions and processes to address these situations. This is why the FATF Recommendations — Financial Action Task Force — set international standards that states must implement and comply with, adapting them to their respective circumstances.

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As other European countries like Spain, France has its own definition of politically exposed persons — PEPs. This definition derives from the transposition of European directives regarding the prevention of money laundering, as well as the impetus from the FATF on this matter.

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FATF has as one of its main objectives the establishment of guidelines that promote the implementation of effective measures in the fight against money laundering and the financing of terrorism. These guidelines are structured around the 40 Recommendations, which are standards for combating money laundering and terrorist financing that States should use as a reference and try to implement in their territories. 

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The FATF published a report in July 2021 titled “money laundering from environmental crime”. This study reinforces FATF’s understanding of the money laundering risks in this criminal sector, highlighting the need to continue working on this issue.

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Last August of 2020, the Federal Reserve of the United States, along with other North American regulatory agencies such as the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and the National Credit Union Administration, issued a joint statement providing some clarity on the measures to be taken regarding politically exposed persons or persons in public positions.

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Following the trend of other European Union member states such as Spain, France, or the Netherlands, the Portuguese jurisdiction also defines politically exposed persons — PEPs —. Similar to other countries in the region, this definition and the regulatory framework in the area of anti-money laundering derives from European directives, along with the influence of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) on this matter.

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