BLEACHING

Money laundering is the act of facilitating, by any means, the false justification of the origin of the property or income of the perpetrator of a crime or an offense which has provided him with direct or indirect profit.
Also constituting money laundering is the act of providing assistance to an operation of placement, concealment or conversion of the direct or indirect proceeds of a crime or an offense.
Money laundering is punishable by five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 375,000 euros.

Money laundering is punishable by ten years’ imprisonment and a fine of 750,000 euros:
1 ° When it is committed in the usual way or by using the facilities provided by the exercise of a professional activity;
2 ° When it is committed in an organized group.

The fine penalties mentioned in articles 324-1 and 324-2 may be high up to half the value of the goods or funds to which the money laundering operations have been carried out.

When the crime or misdemeanor from which the property and funds to which the money laundering has been carried out originate is punishable by a custodial sentence longer than that of the imprisonment incurred in application of articles 324-1 or 324-2, money laundering is punished with the penalties attached to the offense of which its perpetrator has knowledge and, if this offense is accompanied by aggravating circumstances, penalties attached only to the circumstances of which he has knowledge.

Money laundering is assimilated, with regard to recidivism, to the offense in which the money laundering operations were committed.

The attempt of the offenses provided for in this section is punishable by the same penalties.