The First Criminal Section of the Court of Cassation examined the relationship between self-laundering and fraudulent transfer of assets in judgment No. 39489, decided on 22 June 2023 and filed on 28 September 2023. The official headnote is Rv. 285123-01.

The relationship between the offences

The Court describes the offences as having a relationship of reciprocal speciality. The circumstances addressed in the headnote involve assets originating from crime and methods of concealment that make that origin difficult to identify. The relationship between the actual acts must therefore be assessed.

When only self-laundering applies

Where placing an asset in another person's name is the principal means of committing self-laundering, the Court holds that only the more serious offence of self-laundering applies. This follows from the reservation clause in Article 512-bis of the Italian Criminal Code.

The headnote therefore does not support treating liability for both offences as an automatic consequence of the same conduct. The role of the fictitious ownership in the transaction must be established. This commentary concerns that legal principle; it does not reconstruct the individual defendants' positions, which require examination of the full judgment.

Official sources: Corte di cassazione, Rassegna del Massimario.