4/5 – 2011 – Luxembourg-qualified lawyer was given a 2-year suspended sentence and an 8,000-euro fine

1. In a 28 June 2011 Luxembourg Court of Appeals decision, a well-known Luxembourg-qualified lawyer was given a 2-year suspended sentence and an 8,000-euro fine for allowing his bank account to be used for transferring money related to international drug trafficking from Switzerland to Ireland between July 1996 and July 1997.
2. He had appealed his lower court conviction of a 3-year suspended sentence and a 1,000-euro fine.
3. The Luxembourg Court of Appeals found that he knew the origin of the funds and that it was not necessary for the lawyer to know all of the criminal activities and drug trafficking of the persons from whom the funds were transferred, or that he be absolutely certain about those activities. It was sufficient that the he have serious information leading him to believe that the funds came from drug trafficking.
4. The lawyer had been in contact with the wife of the drug trafficker, who had been in prison in the United States during the previous few months, for the purpose of organizing his defence and the funds were to be used to pay the American lawyers. Five transfers, totalling four million dollars, were made from the Luxembourg lawyer’s account. The funds did not stay long in his account, but were immediately sent to an American lawyer’s Irish bank account.
5. The Luxembourg lawyer retained nearly USD 50,000 in his account for the services. He denied knowing the origin of the funds, stating that the client had spoken of an inheritance, the client’s wife had signed a declaration stating that the funds did not come from drug trafficking, and the lawyer himself relied solely upon that declaration.
6. The Public Prosecutor asserted that the retained funds were instead a “risk premium” and that the lawyer could not have been unaware of their illicit origin. Both the lower and appeals courts agreed.
7. The appeals court upheld the lower court’s ruling regarding their application of the Law of 12 November 2004, as amended, stating that unlike the handling of stolen goods (recel), money laundering is a serious offence composed of predicate offenses, such that it was not necessary to decide whether the lawyer had also engaged in the handling of stolen goods.
8. The lawyer has resigned from the bar.

Example 1: http://bit.ly/2pSnX2a

Example 2: http://bit.ly/2q3b6pb

Example 3: http://bit.ly/2ryjui4

Example 5: http://bit.ly/2ryupbD