Facts
Parties: Appellant S. (trustee), Attorney General of the Canton of Bern
Facts: On February 15, 1991, S. received an amount of CHF 205,000 in cash from G. and transferred this amount to various accounts and insurances. The money came from G.'s drug trafficking. The Criminal Chamber of the Canton of Bern convicted G. of drug trafficking to three years imprisonment. The District Court of Bern acquitted S. of the charge of money laundering, while the Higher Court of the Canton of Bern convicted S. of money laundering and imposed a fine of CHF 7,000. S. filed an appeal against this judgment.
Considerations
The offense of money laundering pursuant to Art. 305bis para. 1 SCC is fulfilled if an act is committed which is suitable to prevent the investigation of the origin, the discovery or the confiscation of assets derived from a crime. The appellant S. advised the client G. in his capacity as trustee and distributed the money to various accounts and insurances in order to conceal the origin of the funds. These acts went beyond a simple deposit of cash and were suitable to prevent the investigation of the origin of the funds.
The appellant S. had to know or assume that the assets originated from a crime. The lower court found that S. was aware of the circumstances that gave rise to the suspicion that the money came from a criminal predicate offense. S. had no indications of legal sources of funds and knew G.'s financial situation. The lower court…