A new organic law on the use of financial and tax information to combat money laundering, Organic Law 9/2022, will enter into force on 29 August. Competent authorities will be able to access centralised national registers of bank accounts or data retrieval systems.
Its purpose is to combat money laundering tax crimes, terrorist financing and to improve the prosecution of financial crimes.
This law is a complement to the access and exchange of financial information in the fight against tax crimes. Serious crime is defined by the law as the forms of crime listed in Annex I of Regulation (EU) 2016/794 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2016 (art. 2.1.f LO 9/2022).
Criminal law
Prior judicial authorisation is not necessary for the Financial Titularities file as it only contains identification data of the account holders, it does not contain information about balances or movements. If access to more private data is required, prior authorisation will be necessary.
Recidivism of the offence
If a person is a repeat offender, the current regulation foresees that the offence carries an aggravating circumstance for the offence of theft. Theft offences of less than 400 euros are punishable by 1 to 3 months and if the offence is repeated, the penalty is increased from 1 to 3 years. The supreme court considers that recidivist cases are not sufficiently punishable.
The reform foresees that in cases of petty theft or theft of less than 400 euros, the penalty can be increased if three or more offences are accumulated, increasing the prison sentence from 6 to 18 months.
Source: Legal news
