MONEY LAUNDERING OR LAUNDERING OF THE PROCEEDS OF CRIME? ANA ALINA DUMITRACHE Abstract This paper aims to analyses which of the phrases money laundering or laundering the proceeds of crime is more appropriate to describe the crime provided by art. 23 of Law no. 656/2002 on prevention and sanctioning money laundering, as well as for setting up some measures for prevention and combating terrorism financing. In this respect, the article includes a survey of the important international documents in this matters ratified by Romania - United Nations Vienna Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (the Vienna Convention), the Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds of Crime, The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, Council of Europe Convention on Laundering, Search, Seizure and Confiscation of the Proceeds from Crime and on the Financing of Terrorism. To remove any ambiguities arising from the approach of the money laundering concept and to reach a conclusion, there are also presented the controversial views regarding the use of the expression money laundering in both Title and content of Law, views expressed in specialized literature. Keywords: concept of money, money laundering, laundering the proceeds of crime, organized crime, subject to a tranzaction Introduction The common denominator in all acts of organized crime and the most serious crime is the desire to obtain unlawful financial and material profits, what motivates organized groups to be concerned with masking, disguising, concealing, recycling, or investing the profits obtained from crime, all these operations give rise to a legal appearance of illegal income. 1 In other words, the income derived from criminal activity, in order to be reinvested in other businesses by criminals, must be “cleansed”, “washed” so that it cannot be distinguished from the legitimate income. It is fundamental in understanding the definition of money laundering the definition of money. Thus, money is any value that can be easily transferred from person to person and that it is accepted by most people as payment for goods, services, debts, etc. Money, a present concept in the phrase money laundering may be: cash, precious metals and stones, credit cards, money orders, cards, etc., any amount deemed to be subject to a transaction. In order to properly define money laundering it must be taken into consideration that, firstly, money laundering is a complex and dynamic process, conducted in three stages, being the subject to some considerable changes 2 . Lecturer, Ph.D., Faculty of Law, „Danubius” University, Gala i (e-mail: soosalina@univ-danubius ro) 1 Georgeta Valeria Sab u, Traficul i consumul ilicit de droguri i precursori. Combaterea traficului i consumului ilicit de droguri i precursori prin mijloace de drept penal, (Bucharest , Universul Juridic Publishing House, 2010), p. 342. 2 Mary – Jo Kranacher, Richard Riley and Joseph T. Wells, Forensic Accounting and Fraud Examination, , (USA, RDC Publishing Group, 2010), p. 94.