The Crime of Money Laundering: A Touchstone for The Principles of Il Manifesto del diritto penale liberale e del giusto processo

Far from being an acquis in the national penal legislation, the core principles of liberal criminal law are constantly at risk of being violated by the current developments of both substantial and procedural criminal law. For this reason, such principles have been reaffirmed by the Manifesto del diritto penale liberale e del giusto processo issued by the Unione delle Camere Penali Italiane in 2019 and publicly discussed in Bologna in November 2022. Building on that forum, this article intends, on the one hand, to illustrate how these principles stand in a line of continuity with the so-called Frankfurter Schule für Strafrecht. On the other hand, this paper compares the Manifesto’s Principles number 2, 3, 5, 11 and 15 with the Italian and German criminal provisions on money laundering, highlighting the instrumental nature of this offense and its paradigmatic suitability to violate the principles of liberal criminal law.