Money laundering lawyer in Madrid

Also searched as: money laundering lawyer Madrid · anti money laundering defence Spain · article 301 Spanish Criminal Code · frozen bank account Spain lawyer · SEPBLAC investigation

Money laundering is, together with tax fraud, the offence that has grown most in Madrid investigations over the last decade, and the one most frequently added to any economic investigation: where there is a fraud, an asset-stripping or a tax offence, the prosecution usually adds the laundering of the proceeds. Madrid hosts the head offices of the banks, the Spanish financial intelligence unit (SEPBLAC) and the Audiencia Nacional, and therefore hosts these proceedings too. Foreign residents and investors are a frequent target, because international transfers, property purchases with funds from abroad and corporate structures in other jurisdictions attract reporting by banks and notaries.

What article 301 punishes

Paragraph 1 punishes with six months to six years’ imprisonment and a fine of one to three times the value of the assets anyone who acquires, possesses, uses, converts or transfers assets knowing that they derive from criminal activity, committed by themselves or by any third party, or who performs any other act to conceal or disguise their unlawful origin or to help the person involved evade the legal consequences of their acts. The court may also impose disqualification from the profession or business for one to three years and the temporary or permanent closure of the premises. The penalty is imposed in its upper half where the assets derive from drug trafficking and from the offences the provision lists by reference, including tax and social security fraud, business corruption, planning offences and offences against public administration. Paragraph 2 punishes with the same penalties the concealment or disguise of the true nature, origin, location, disposition, movement or rights over the assets.

Negligent laundering. Paragraph 3 punishes with six months to two years’ imprisonment and a fine of one to three times the value acts committed by gross negligence. This is the form that most concerns professionals, managers, estate agents, notaries and financial institutions: it does not require knowledge that the money is illicit, but having grossly ignored what anyone in that position would have noticed. Article 302.1 adds that the penalty is imposed in its upper half on those who, being obliged entities under anti-money-laundering legislation, commit the conduct in the course of their professional activity.

Foreign origin and confiscation. Paragraph 4 provides that the offender is punished even if the offence from which the assets derive was committed wholly or partly abroad, which in Madrid, an international investment hub, applies constantly. Paragraph 5 orders confiscation of the proceeds under article 127, and extended and autonomous confiscation reach assets that are not the direct object of the proceedings.

Which court in Madrid: Court of First Instance or Audiencia Nacional

The general rule is that laundering is investigated in the judicial district where the acts of conversion or transfer took place, that is, in Madrid before the investigating section of the Court of First Instance, and tried by the Provincial Court where the sentence sought exceeds five years. The Audiencia Nacional intervenes, under article 65 of the Organic Law on the Judiciary, where the laundering is connected with offences within its jurisdiction, such as drug trafficking by organisations with effects in several provinces or fraud with serious repercussions on the national economy, or where the predicate offence was committed outside Spain and falls to the Spanish courts. The difference is not merely one of venue: Audiencia Nacional proceedings are large-scale cases with dozens of suspects, letters rogatory and frequent pre-trial detention, and require a defence designed for that scale.

How it is proved and how it is defended

Laundering is proved by circumstantial evidence, and case law has settled three indicators that the prosecution invokes systematically: an unexplained increase in assets or the handling of sums of money inconsistent with the known activity; the absence of lawful business explaining those transactions; and a link with criminal activities or with persons connected to them. Added to these are the use of cash, of interposed companies, of nominees and of fragmented transactions. The defence is built on three levels: proving the lawful origin of the assets with tax, banking and corporate documentation, which is the work of highest return and requires the firm’s own forensic accounting expert; challenging the proof of the predicate offence, because without a criminal source there is no laundering; and contesting the mental element, distinguishing knowledge of the unlawful origin from mere suspicion and delimiting the scope of gross negligence. For foreign residents, documenting the origin of funds transferred from abroad, with tax returns and bank records from the home country, is usually decisive.

A practical warning: in Madrid laundering investigations, searches of the home and the registered office, freezing of bank accounts and interception of communications are routine. Challenging those measures, where ordered without sufficient reasoning, is frequently the argument that decides the case, and it must be raised at the investigation stage, not at trial.

Obliged entities and companies

Lawyers, notaries, registrars, tax advisers, auditors, property developers, estate agents, jewellers, casinos and financial institutions are obliged entities under anti-money-laundering legislation. For them the risk is twofold: administrative sanctions for breaching due diligence and reporting obligations, and the aggravated penalty of article 302.1 if they commit laundering in the course of their activity. Where a legal person is liable under article 31 bis, article 302.2 imposes a fine of two to five years where the individual’s offence carries more than five years’ imprisonment, in addition to the penalties of article 33.7. A crime-prevention model and due diligence procedures are the only effective defence of the entity, and they must exist before the facts.

Informative page prepared by Société de Conseil Juridique et Expert. It does not constitute legal advice and does not replace consultation with a lawyer on the specific case.

Last reviewed: 25 September 2026.