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CHAPTER 1

1. ORIGIN OF THE INVESTIGATION AND INTRODUCTION

1.1 The Commission has previously proposed that the courts be empowered to confiscate the proceeds of crime in general. Together with this, the Commission also proposed the creation of a number of offences to criminalise money laundering and certain related acts.^[1] The Commission is, however, of the opinion that the mere criminalisation of money laundering will not provide an effective measure with which to combat this phenomenon. Following the recommendations on the criminalisation of money laundering the Commission therefore decided to undertake an investigation focusing specifically on administrative measures to combat money laundering.

1.2 In the course of this investigation the Commission published two documents for general knowledge and comment. In the first, Issue Paper 1, certain issues were identified and various options for reform in respect of each issue were discussed. In the second, Discussion Paper 64, the Commission discussed its preliminary proposals for reform. These proposals were based on the directions indicated by the responses to Issue Paper 1 and were aimed at addressing the issues defined therein.

1.3 The responses to Discussion Paper 64 have enabled the Commission, with the assistance of its project committee, to formulate its views on this matter and to make the recommendations contained in this report.

[1] Chapter 5 of the proposed Proceeds of Crime Bill, Annexure B to the Commission’s Report on International Co-operation in Criminal Matters (Project 98).