money laundering best practices, lessons to be learnt and steps

other legal persons that are fully or partially financed from public income, National Bank ofYugoslavia –Clearing and Payment Department, insurance companies, stock exchanges, stockbrokers and other subjects involved with transactions involving cash, securities, precious metalsand gems, as well as purchase and sale of claims and debts, exchange offices, pawn shops,casinos, booking offices, slot machines clubs and organizers of lotteries and other fortune games,as well as the other legal and physical persons dealing with purchase or sale of claims andliabilities or financial transactions 21 .The Law sees money laundering as a separate criminal act. It appears in three models: basic,special and aggravated. The basic model of this criminal act, for which the law foresees a penaltyfrom six months to five years, exists when any activity is undertaken that is not in accordancewith provisions of this law by which money should be deposited in a bank or other financialorganization or institution or in any other way included in legal financial system. The awarenessor knowledge of the perpetrator that money involved was acquired in a criminal act is the basis ofthe criminal responsibility of this individual.A special model of this criminal act, for which the law foresees a penalty up to three years, existsin cases when the perpetrator did not know that money involved is acquired by some criminal act,but he could have known or he was obliged to know.The gravest mode of this criminal act, for which the law foresees a penalty from one to eightyears, exists in cases when more than one million dinars is laundered. This means that thelaundered amount is a determining parameter for this criminal act.In any case, and with no regard to the model of the criminal act, the court, along with the prisonsentence, proclaims the safety measure of ceasing the money or gains that were subject oflaundering.Transparency International, even with the improved legislation, still finds the problem of greyeconomy in Serbia, although lower than a few years ago, a big problem and one of the majorchallenges that Authorities for Prevention of Money Laundering have to face 22 .According to DraganĐ uricin, professor at the Economic Faculty in Belgrade, there are twocauses of the money laundering situation in Serbia. The first one can be found in the21Art 5 of the Money Laundering Act22http://www.transparentnost.org.yu/index_s.htmMoney Laundering Best Practices,Lessons to be Learnt in the Balkan RegionWritten by Tamara BrneticPage 33 of 58