COMPARATIVE OVERVIEW OF MONEY LAUNDERING IN CRIMINAL LEGISLATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF CROATIA AND THE REPUBLIC OF SERBIA

Money laundering today is the most dangerous corruption offense whose main motive is the acquisition of unlawful property gains by concealing its unlawful origin. The aggravating circumstances in detecting this criminal offense relate to sophisticated perpetration and organization of perpetrators, different modes of execution, but also to its transnational character. In this paper the authors have presented a comparative overview of the criminal offense of money laundering in the legislation of Croatia, a EU Member State and Serbia, an applicant country. The first part of the paper sets forth the basic concepts of money laundering, its characteristics and forms. Furthermore, given is the international legal framework for the suppression of money laundering and, accordingly, the criminal justice framework of Croatia and Serbia with a goal of fighting this very widespread economic crime. A survey was conducted and an analysis of the state and movements of the corruptive criminal offenses of money laundering in Croatia and Serbia in the last two years. Attention was drawn to the jurisdiction in the criminal proceedings as well as the necessary international cooperation of the states in the suppression of this, in most cases, transnational criminal offense. Concluding considerations include de lege ferenda proposals to improve the normative legal framework and measures are proposed to prevent money laundering in order to successfully combat this progressive financial crime of today.