Money laundering is the process of concealing the illegal origin of funds so that they appear to have been legally obtained. It is a serious economic crime regulated by Article 299 of the Penal Code.
For several years, the number of money laundering proceedings initiated in Poland has been steadily increasing. In 2022, approximately 1,200 proceedings were initiated under Article 299 of the Penal Code, compared to approximately 700 in 2015. For this crime, the rate of concluding proceedings with an indictment is around 30–40% of initiated cases. The value of seized assets has also been rising in recent years—in 2022, this amount exceeded PLN 1.5 billion.
The subject of enforcement actions are means of payment, financial instruments, securities, foreign exchange, property rights, and movable or immovable property derived from the benefits of a prohibited act committed by the perpetrator himself or by other persons. It follows from the above that the subject of this crime can essentially be any asset. This applies only to property derived directly or indirectly from any prohibited act.
This crime can be committed through the following behaviors: receiving, possessing, using, transferring, exporting, concealing, transferring, or converting them, assisting in the transfer of ownership or possession, or undertaking any other actions that may prevent or significantly hinder the determination of the criminal origin, location, detection, seizure, or forfeiture of these funds. However, the prevention or significant hindering is not required to actually occur. It is sufficient that the perpetrator's act could have caused such a result.
Any person can be the perpetrator. The perpetrator may act on behalf of a legal entity that holds certain property rights, acting as its attorney or representative.
The offence specified in Article 299 § 2 of the Penal Code consists in accepting means of payment or transferring or converting such means, securities, financial instruments or foreign exchange values by an employee or person acting on behalf of or for the benefit of a bank, financial or credit institution or other entity which, under the law, is obliged to register transactions and persons carrying out the transactions.
Money laundering is an intentional crime. To attribute liability to the perpetrator, it is necessary to demonstrate that the perpetrator was aware that the funds originated from a criminal act, and also to demonstrate that the perpetrator acted with the intent to thwart or significantly hinder the identification of the origin of these funds from the criminal act. The circumstances of the event should objectively raise a reasonable suspicion in the perpetrator that the funds are being laundered. If the circumstances of the transaction did not allow the perpetrator to suspect that the funds originated from a criminal act, then it will be impossible to attribute the perpetrator's actions with the intent to launder money.
To constitute this crime, it is not necessary to act with the intention of introducing dirty money into legal circulation. It is sufficient to demonstrate that the perpetrator who commits money laundering does so for another purpose (e.g., to gain financial benefit).
The basic type of money laundering offence is punishable by imprisonment from 6 months to 8 years.
What actions should be taken to avoid false accusations of money laundering?
These days, as my trial experience shows, it's not difficult to be wrongly accused of money laundering. There have been situations where, for example, an employee at a currency exchange or cryptocurrency exchange made a transaction with someone who later turned out to have funds derived from a crime, but the employee was unaware of the criminal origin of the funds, and then was wrongly charged with money laundering.
You can protect yourself from such a situation by verifying each contractor with whom you enter into cooperation.
If you operate as an obligated institution (e.g. accounting office, currency exchange office, notary, real estate agent, tax advisor, fintech company, etc.), you are obliged to apply financial security measures, including contractor verification, in accordance with the Act of 1 March 2018 on Counteracting Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (the so-called AML Act).
This verification should be performed as follows:
Identification and verification of the contractor's identity (CDD – Customer Due Diligence)
Basic verification should include collecting data about our contractor, namely:
In the case of a natural person:
- Name and surname
- Citizenship
- PESEL (or date of birth and country of birth if no PESEL)
- Residential address
- Identity document number + its validity
In the case of a legal person:
- Name
- Legal form
- Headquarters
- KRS or NIP number
- determining the ownership structure
- data of representatives (e.g. board members)
It is necessary to verify the data from the documents (excerpt from the National Court Register, CEIDG, REGON, other public registers) in order to verify whether the entity that is contacting us is actually authorized to represent a given legal entity.
It's important to determine who is truly behind a given legal entity—that is, who actually controls our contractor and profits from their activities. We verify this data based on the Central Register of Beneficial Owners (CRBR)—https: //crbr.podatki.gov.pl .
We need to determine whether our contractor, in the case of legal entities, is on the VAT white list. This can be determined online at: https://www.podatki.gov.pl/wykaz-podatnikow-vat-wyszukiwarka
It is necessary to determine whether our contractor has a website and a registered office (or whether he or she has a virtual office)
It is necessary to determine whether there is any media information about our contractor that raises doubts on our part as to his reliability and the legality of his actions.
It is necessary to verify whether our contractor is a politically exposed person (PEP) or is a person known to be a close associate of a person with PEP status.
It is necessary to verify whether our contractor has not been included on the sanctions lists or warning lists of the Polish Financial Supervision Authority.
This is, of course, only part of the activities we carry out when verifying a contractor and assessing the risk of entering into cooperation with him.
Other helpful tools for contractor verification are:
- CEIDG: https://aplikacja.ceidg.gov.pl/
- KRS: https://ekrs.ms.gov.pl/
- EU/UN sanctions lists
- PEP and high-risk country lists
The data referred to above will be used to conduct a risk assessment.
Risk-based assessment
Based on the collected data, we conduct a so-called risk assessment.
It is important to assess whether entering into a partnership with a contractor poses unacceptable, high, medium, or low risk . If unacceptable or high risk exists, the partnership should be abandoned.
This assessment is influenced by, among others:
- Country of origin (whether the contractor comes from a "high-risk country")
- Industry (e.g. cryptocurrencies, real estate – higher risk)
- Unusual transactions or structures
- Politically exposed persons (PEP)
In case of higher risk, we are obliged to apply increased diligence measures .
Customer relationship monitoring
It's important to remember not to limit ourselves to a one-time verification of a counterparty upon entering into a partnership. If our partnership is long-term, the counterparty should be verified periodically (e.g., during the course of the partnership, the counterparty may receive a warning from the Polish Financial Supervision Authority, and if we conduct transactions with such a counterparty, we may be accused of criminal activity).
Documenting and storing data
- A report containing the risk assessment should be prepared after the verification is completed.
- The report should be kept for 5 years after the end of the relationship with the contractor .
Correctly conducted verification of our contractor and proper documentation of this verification can protect us from unjustified accusations of money laundering.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice.
Legal status as of April 29, 2025
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