📋 Tender Overview
Judge Juan Rosas Castañeda warned that legally constituted companies with legal economic activities may be susceptible to asset forfeiture and even lose their legal capital if it is mixed with illicit money resulting from irregular activities such as drug trafficking, illegal mining, terrorism; among others.
The magistrate pointed out that this type of case occurs when businessmen or managers incur the crime of money laundering by allowing illicit assets to be incorporated into their legally constituted assets.
In this regard, he explained that in this type of case, capital mixes occur. In other words, licit capital becomes an instrument to launder assets of illicit origin and in this framework, entrepreneurs and managers of these companies can commit the crime of money laundering, for which their assets may be subject to asset forfeiture.
In the same vein, the judge admitted that there is the possibility that the businessman argues that he did not know the origin of the money, however, he clarified that the Asset Forfeiture Subsystem does not analyze malice (the crime) but the recklessness to accept money of illicit origin.
"In forfeiture of ownership, intent is not analyzed. If the businessman argues that he was unaware that the money had illicit origin, but it is noted that he has been reckless in accepting money whose origin he did not know and that could be presumed to have an illicit origin, that asset may also be susceptible to forfeiture," he argued.
