Financial crimes in the company: what they are and how they are dealt with

"Financial crime" is not a category of the Colombian Código Penal: it is a practical label for a set of conduct that strikes at money, credit and economic confidence. And that imprecision has consequences, because what decides the fate of a company —or of the person who manages it— is not the label but the exact statutory offense: its core conduct verb, its penalty and the legal interest it protects.

This article does exactly that: it defines, one by one, the financial and economic crimes that most often brush against a company in Colombia. The distinction is not academic. One and the same transaction —a payment, a loan between shareholders, an invoice, a capital contribution— can be a civil matter, an administrative infraction or a crime, depending on the verb the Fiscalía manages to prove. Knowing that boundary is the first act of prevention and also the first act of defense.

Here we deal with what these offenses are: how they are worded, what conduct they punish and with what penalty; not with what to do about them. If your company was the victim of a fraud and needs the route for filing a complaint, requesting precautionary measures and recovering the money, we develop that separately (the company as the victim of a crime). The personal liability of its executives (criminal liability of directors and officers) and preventive shielding through criminal compliance (corporate criminal compliance) also have their own piece.

A word on method: the penalties below are those set by the Código Penal (Ley 599 de 2000) and its amendments, checked against the text in force. Where the Code keeps its original wording, the general increase under article 14 of Ley 890 de 2004 raises the ranges that apply today, and we note this in each case.

The essentials

If you have a minute, this is what is worth remembering before going into the detail:

• The financial crime does not exist as a single statutory offense: it is a set of conduct scattered through the Código Penal that protects three different legal interests —the economic and social order, property and State revenue collection—.
• The money laundering (art. 323) is the one that most exposes a legitimate company, because it is an offense of mere conduct and autonomous: it does not require a prior conviction for the offense that gave rise to the money.
• In Colombia the company does not stand criminal trial; the natural persons who run it are the ones who answer. But the company can indeed lose its assets through extinción de dominio and, in one case —transnational bribery—, be sanctioned administratively itself.
• The correct characterization —estafa, abuso de confianza or administración desleal— determines the competent authority, the penalty and the defense. They are not synonyms.
• In the tax offenses, correcting the return and paying can extinguish the criminal action —it is the only family of offenses with that way out—; and the absence of a criminal conviction does not put your assets beyond the reach of extinción de dominio.

What financial crimes are and why they compromise a company

Under the heading of financial or economic crimes there coexist statutory offenses scattered through the Código Penal (Ley 599 de 2000), which are ordered according to the legal interest that each one protects. That is the compass: the legal interest explains why the conduct is an offense and who, strictly speaking, the victim is.

Some protect the economic and social order —the collective confidence in the financial system and in the market, not the pocket of a specific person—: money laundering, unlawful deposit-taking, testaferrato and illicit enrichment by private individuals. Here the victim is diffuse: it is the economy itself, the ground rule that allows money to circulate transparently. Others protect the property and economic assets of a person or of a company —estafa, abuso de confianza, administración desleal—: in that case there is an identifiable injured party who lost something of their own. And a third group, the tax offenses, protects State revenue collection, that is, everyone's right to have each person pay what they owe.

That difference is not theoretical. It determines before which authority the matter is litigated, whether the offense is prosecuted on the State's own initiative or requires a querella (a complaint lodged by the victim), whether conciliation is available and what is needed to prove or disprove it.

A company can appear in this story in three very different ways, and confusing them is dangerous:

• As an alleged wrongdoer, through the natural persons who run it or work in it: in Colombia the company does not sit in the criminal dock, but its officers certainly can be liable.
• As an instrument, when third parties use its invoicing, its accounts or its front to move money of unlawful origin, often without the company noticing.
• As a victim, when an employee, a shareholder or a third party strips it of its resources.

This text looks above all at the first two: what conduct constitutes an offense and how it can reach the organization. We develop the route for the harmed company in a separate piece (the company as the victim of a crime).

Money laundering (art. 323): the offense that most exposes a legitimate company

Money laundering is, by some distance, the financial crime that most easily entangles a company that believes itself to be a stranger to the problem. The reason lies in its wording. Article 323 does not require you to "launder" in the colloquial sense: it punishes anyone who acquires, safeguards, invests, transports, transforms, stores, preserves, keeps in custody or manages assets whose origin, mediate or immediate, lies in activities such as drug trafficking, extortion, kidnapping for extortion, illicit enrichment, the financing of terrorism, offenses against public administration, smuggling or customs fraud, among many others —or anyone who gives them an appearance of legality, conceals them or covers up their true origin—. There are several core conduct verbs alternative: carrying out just one of them, with knowledge of the origin, is enough for the offense to be complete.

Three features make it especially severe:

• It is an offense of mere conduct: the article itself says that it is incurred "by that conduct alone". It is complete upon carrying out the verb, without any additional result or actual gain being necessary.
• Es autonomous: it does not require a prior conviction —not even a proceeding under way— for the offense that gave rise to the assets; it is enough that this unlawful origin be established. The Code itself states that laundering "shall be punishable even where the activities from which the assets came… were carried out, in whole or in part, abroad".
• Its penalties are aggravated when, in order to launder, foreign-exchange or foreign-trade transactions are carried out, or goods are brought into the country.

That is why a company can end up involved without having committed the predicate offense: it is paid with money of murky provenance, a client uses its accounts as a screen, or a shareholder contributes capital that does not withstand a single question. Think of an everyday case: you receive from a new client an advance payment far above what was agreed and they ask you to "return the difference" to a different account. If you accept without checking the origin, you may end up managing or transforming assets of unlawful origin. There is no need for you to have trafficked anything.

The common misconception. Many business owners believe that only those who move drug money launder. False: the list of predicate offenses is broad and grows with each reform, and it includes corruption, smuggling, extortion, tax evasion and customs fraud. And another, costlier mistake: believing that "I did not know" is enough on its own. The criminal debate turns on knowledge, and knowledge is proved with facts —or ruled out with documented diligence—.

Here the company is in the spotlight twice over. Article 324 aggravates the penalty by one third to one half where the conduct is carried out by someone who belongs to a legal person, company or organization devoted to laundering, and by one half to three quarters where it is carried out by its heads, officers or managers. And article 325 punishes the failure to exercise control: a member of the board of directors, legal representative, officer or employee of a financial institution who, in order to conceal the unlawful origin of the money, omits the control mechanisms incurs imprisonment of thirty-eight (38) to one hundred twenty-eight (128) months. Complying with SARLAFT stops being paperwork: deliberately omitting it is, in itself, an offense.

This is where know-your-customer procedures and due diligence stop being bureaucracy and become a criminal-law shield: they make it possible to show that the company acted in good faith and without knowing the origin of the funds. How to build that shield —SARLAFT or SAGRLAFT systems, red flags, reports— is developed in the piece on criminal compliance (corporate criminal compliance).

Mass and habitual deposit-taking from the public: the "pyramid schemes" (arts. 316 and 316A)

Taking money from the public —receiving savings, investments or deposits from an indeterminate mass of people— is an activity reserved to supervised and authorized entities. Doing it outside that channel is an offense. Article 316 punishes anyone who carries out, promotes, sponsors, induces, finances, collaborates in or performs any other act to take money from the public on a mass and habitual basis without the prior authorization of the competent authority. Two requirements mark the boundary with a lawful business: that the deposit-taking be mass (from a large and indeterminate number of people) and habitual (repeated, not an isolated loan between acquaintances).

The law closes the circle with article 316A, which punishes anyone who, having taken in funds from the public, fails to return them. It is the answer to the classic "pyramid" pattern: promising impossible returns, paying the first investors with the money of the last and disappearing when the wheel stops turning.

These penalties are no accident. They were born of the 2008 collapse of the pyramid schemes —DMG and DRFE, among others—, which led the Government to declare a state of social emergency and to toughen the offense. The text in force comes from Decreto Legislativo 4336 de 2008, issued during that emergency, and from Ley 1357 de 2009, which made it permanent.

The common misconception. Many promoters believe that it is enough not to call what they offer an "investment" —they speak of "loans", "memberships", "clubs" or "gifts"— to fall outside the offense. That is not so: what matters is the actual conduct (taking money from the public on a mass and habitual basis without authorization), not the label on the contract. And for the legitimate company there is a risk of contagion: lending its front, its advertising or its accounts to a scheme of this kind can fit the verbs "promotes, sponsors, finances or collaborates". An example on your own ground: if you allow your company to serve as a channel for collecting "investments" from dozens of people with a promise of fixed returns, without being an authorized entity, you are not doing business: you are taking deposits from the public.

Estafa, abuso de confianza and administración desleal (arts. 246, 249 and 250B): three frauds that get confused

These three offenses strike at property, but by different routes, and pinning down which is which often decides a case. The difference lies in when and how the relationship with the money is broken.

The estafa (art. 246) requires deception that is prior: anyone who, by artifice or deception, induces or maintains another in error and, by that route, obtains an unlawful gain to another's detriment. The victim hands over their money because they were deceived; the deception is the cause of the transfer of assets. The text of the Code sets imprisonment of two (2) to eight (8) years and a fine of fifty (50) to one thousand (1,000) monthly statutory minimum wages; because of the general increase under article 14 of Ley 890 de 2004, the range that applies today runs from thirty-two (32) to one hundred forty-four (144) months.

The abuso de confianza (art. 249) starts from the opposite: there was no initial deception. The person received the thing lawfully, under a title that does not transfer ownership —a deposit, a mandate, an administration, a loan for use— and later then appropriates it. The offense arises from betraying a trust that already existed, not from manufacturing it. The penalty is sixteen (16) to seventy-two (72) months and a fine of thirteen point thirty-three (13.33) to three hundred (300) monthly statutory minimum wages.

The administración desleal (art. 250B) is the corporate version of internal fraud, and the one a company should watch most closely. It punishes the officer —de facto or de jure—, shareholder, executive, employee or adviser who, abusing the functions of their own position and for their own benefit or that of a third party, fraudulently disposes of the company's assets or takes on debt in its name, directly causing the shareholders economically assessable harm. It does not protect an outsider: it protects the company itself against whoever runs it.

The practical rule. If your company was deceived from the outside in order to take money from it, think of estafa; if someone you trusted with an asset kept it, think of abuso de confianza; if the person who manages the company looted it from the inside, think of administración desleal. An example that shows the boundary: the supplier who charges you for goods it never intended to deliver commits estafa (deception up front); the warehouse manager to whom you entrusted the inventory and who resells it for himself commits abuso de confianza (he received it lawfully and appropriated it afterward); the general manager who signs sham contracts to divert the cash to a company of his own commits administración desleal (he abuses his position). The correct characterization determines the competent authority, the penalty and the strategy.

A fourth offense worth knowing: private-sector corruption (art. 250A). Also added by Ley 1474 de 2011, it punishes anyone who promises, offers or grants an executive, officer, employee or adviser of a company, association or foundation a gift or unjustified benefit in order to be favored to that entity's detriment —and, with the same penalty, the executive or employee who receives, solicits or accepts it—. This is "bribery between private parties": the disloyal employee who receives a hidden commission from a supplier in order to steer a purchase falls within it.

Testaferrato (straw-man ownership) and illicit enrichment by private individuals (arts. 326 and 327)

The testaferrato (art. 326) punishes anyone who lends their name to acquire assets with money derived from the offense of drug trafficking and related offenses —and, where the money comes from kidnapping for extortion, extortion and related offenses, with the same penalty and a higher fine—. It is the "front" offense: the person or the company that appears as the owner of an asset that in reality belongs to another, in order to conceal its origin. The penalty ranges from ninety-six (96) to two hundred seventy (270) months, without prejudice to the decomiso (confiscation) of the assets. It was introduced by Ley 733 de 2002 and its penalties were adjusted by Ley 890 de 2004.

The illicit enrichment by private individuals (art. 327) punishes anyone who, directly or through an intermediary, obtains for themselves or for another an unjustified increase in assets derived, in one way or another, from criminal activities. Having an unexplained estate is not enough: the offense requires that this increase derive from criminal activities; the mere absence of accounting justification does not, on its own, make out the offense. The Code sets imprisonment of six (6) to ten (10) years —96 to 180 months with the increase under Ley 890 de 2004— and a fine equal to twice the value of the unlawful increase, not exceeding fifty thousand (50,000) monthly statutory minimum wages.

The common misconception. Testaferrato is seen as a minor favor —"I only put my name on it"—, but the law treats it as a serious offense, with years of imprisonment and decomiso of the asset. And with illicit enrichment, many believe that what is punished is "not being able to explain where the money came from"; that is not so: the Fiscalía (Prosecutor's Office) must establish the link to a criminal activity, not a mere doubt about someone's assets. Example: if you agree to appear as a shareholder or as the owner of a property bought by a third party with money they do not want to show, you may be committing testaferrato even if you receive not one peso in return.

Tax offenses: omission of assets and tax fraud (arts. 434A and 434B)

Since 2016, evading taxes above certain amounts has ceased to be merely an administrative matter with the DIAN (Colombia's tax authority) and has become a crime. Two statutory offenses cover it, and their thresholds were lowered by the 2022 tax reform (Ley 2277 de 2022), so that today they reach more taxpayers than before.

The omission of assets or inclusion of nonexistent liabilities (art. 434A) punishes anyone who, with the purpose of fraud or evasion, omits assets, declares them at a lower value or declares nonexistent liabilities in their tax returns, in an amount equal to or greater than 1,000 monthly statutory minimum wages, with imprisonment of forty-eight (48) to one hundred eight (108) months. The penalty is increased by one third where the amount exceeds 2,500 monthly minimum wages, and by one half where it exceeds 5,000.

The tax fraud or tax evasion (art. 434B) punishes anyone who, being required to file, fails to file, or omits income, or includes nonexistent costs or expenses, or claims tax credits, withholdings or advance payments that are not due, with the purpose of fraud or evasion, generating a lower amount payable or a larger credit balance in an amount equal to or greater than 100 and less than 2,500 monthly statutory minimum wages; the base penalty is thirty-six (36) to sixty (60) months, and it is likewise aggravated in the higher brackets.

That last point is the distinctive feature of the tax family of offenses: it is the only one in which correcting and paying can close the criminal proceeding. That is why, when faced with a formal notice from the DIAN, the decision to correct in time has consequences that go well beyond the pocket. History and current status: these offenses were created by Ley 1819 de 2016, survived the fall of Ley 1943 de 2018 and its reinstatement by Ley 2010 de 2019, and today apply with the wording and the thresholds of Ley 2277 de 2022.

The common misconception. "If I pay later, nothing happens" is only half true: extinguishment by payment operates up to twice; the third time, payment merely reduces the penalty and no longer closes the proceeding. And "the accountant will fix this" ignores that intentional conduct above the threshold is a crime for which the taxpayer answers.

Transnational bribery (art. 433) and the liability of the company itself (Ley 1778 de 2016)

The transnational bribery (art. 433) punishes anyone who gives, promises or offers a foreign public official, directly or indirectly, money or another benefit so that they perform, omit or delay an act of their office in connection with an international business transaction. The penalty is high: imprisonment of nine (9) to fifteen (15) years, disqualification from exercising public rights and functions, and a fine of six hundred fifty (650) to fifty thousand (50,000) monthly statutory minimum wages. It matters to any Colombian company that exports, imports, bids or contracts abroad.

And here something happens that breaks the general rule of this article. So far we have said that the company is not criminally liable; its officers are. Transnational bribery is the exception: Ley 1778 de 2016 created an administrative liability of the legal person itself where, through its employees, contractors, officers or associates, it bribes a foreign public official. It is not criminal liability —there is no prison for the company— but it does mean administrative penalties imposed directly by the Superintendencia de Sociedades, without prejudice to the criminal liability of the legal representative. Even a parent company may answer for what its subsidiary does with its consent or its tolerance.

The practical consequence is direct: in this area, a business ethics and transnational bribery prevention program protects not only the executives but the company as such, which can be sanctioned in its own name. That preventive design is part of criminal compliance (corporate criminal compliance).

How they are investigated: the UIAF, the ROS and financial evidence

Understanding who does what avoids two frequent mistakes: believing that a financial report amounts to an accusation, and believing that without a criminal conviction the assets are safe.

The Unidad de Información y Análisis Financiero (UIAF), created by Ley 526 de 1999, is the country's financial intelligence unit: a special administrative unit, technical in nature, attached to the Ministerio de Hacienda (Ministry of Finance). From banks, notaries' offices and other reporting entities it receives the suspicious transaction reports (ROS), centralizes and systematizes the information and produces analysis. But the UIAF does not investigate or adjudicate: its report is intelligence, a confidential input that guides the authorities and the bodies entitled to bring extinción de dominio (asset forfeiture) proceedings; on its own it is not evidence and it accuses no one. A key point for companies: the ROS is filed by the reporting entity —your bank, for example— it is confidential and the person reported is not even informed. The fact that your transaction generates a ROS does not mean that you are guilty of anything.

The Fiscalía General de la Nación is the body that investigates and brings charges. In financial crimes its work is above all documentary and expert-based: reconstructing the traceability of the money, following the flows between accounts and companies, assessing the accounts with expert witnesses and, where appropriate, lifting bank secrecy under judicial supervision. The financial evidence —bank statements, contracts, accounting expert reports, chains of transfers— is the heart of these cases, and its lawfulness and its chain of custody are decisive ground: how it was obtained and who kept it can change the outcome.

These criminal investigations should not be confused with the proceedings of the regulators (Superintendencia Financiera, Superintendencia de Sociedades, DIAN), which run on a separate track and with their own penalties. One and the same transaction can give rise, at the same time, to a ROS, a criminal investigation and an administrative proceeding.

Extinción de dominio (Ley 1708 de 2014): an autonomous action against the assets

Alongside criminal prosecution there is a parallel route that many companies underestimate: extinción de dominio, governed by Ley 1708 de 2014 (Código de Extinción de Dominio). It is an action in rem —it proceeds against the assets, not against the person— aimed at assets of unlawful origin or unlawful destination. And it is autonomous and independent of the criminal proceeding: it can move forward and declare the loss of the asset in favor of the State even where there is no conviction, and even against third parties who appear as the holders of title.

For a company, the consequence is serious. Testaferrato and money laundering do not only expose individuals to a prison sentence: they put at risk the estate. A property, a shareholding or a vehicle fleet acquired with funds of unlawful origin —or intended for an unlawful activity— may be subject to extinción regardless of whether anyone is convicted in the criminal proceeding. That is why clean traceability of assets is not an accounting luxury: it is a defense of the estate.

Financial crimes at a glance

The table below summarizes, for each offense, its essential core conduct verb (verbo rector), the penalty in force and the legal interest it protects. The penalties expressed in years correspond to the text of the Code; where the increase under article 14 of Ley 890 de 2004 applies, the range in months is also given.

Transnational bribery belongs, strictly speaking, among the offenses against public administration; we include it here because of its direct impact on the exporting company.

Prevention and lines of defense

Faced with these risks, the company has two fronts. The first is preventive: money laundering and terrorist financing risk management systems (SARLAFT in the financial sector; SAGRLAFT and business transparency and ethics programs in the real —non-financial— sector), know-your-customer procedures, segregation of duties, counterparty due diligence and reporting channels. It is not a formality: it is what makes it possible to show diligence if a third party's money touches the organization and —in money laundering and in transnational bribery— its absence can itself be a source of liability. We develop that front in full in the piece on criminal compliance (corporate criminal compliance).

The second front is professional legal defense once the investigation has already begun. In money laundering, the discussion usually turns on knowledge: proving that there was no criminal intent, that the unlawful origin was not known —and could not have been known—. In property frauds, the key is the characterization: distinguishing a civil breach from a crime, or an estafa from an abuso de confianza. In tax matters there is a particular way out: correcting and paying can extinguish the criminal action. And in all of them, the review of the lawfulness of the financial evidence —how it was obtained, who kept it— can be decisive.

One nuance: if the fraud was committed by computer means —impersonation, unauthorized access to systems, unconsented transfers—, the offenses under Ley 1273 de 2009 come into play, which we deal with separately (cybercrimes and Ley 1273). And the personal liability of those who run the company has its own logic (criminal liability of directors and officers).

What not to do when facing a financial investigation

When a summons, a search of the premises or news of a ROS arrives, the first moves count. These are the mistakes that most often make a case worse:

• Do not destroy or "clean up" documents. Deleting emails, altering the accounts or "tidying up" files can constitute additional offenses (procedural fraud, forgery) and destroys the evidence that could exonerate you.
• Do not move or transfer the assets identified. Transferring assets to relatives or to other companies does not protect them: it feeds extinción de dominio and suggests awareness of wrongdoing.
• Do not give interviews or "clarifications" without a lawyer. What you say in order to "cooperate" can fix a version that you will not be able to correct later. You have the right to remain silent.
• Do not sign backdated documents or "fix" contracts. Manufacturing supporting records after the fact turns an explainable problem into an intentional one.
• Do not assume that the accountant or the statutory auditor represents you. Criminal defense is a different function, and their interests may diverge from yours.
• Do not let the deadlines pass. In tax matters, the window to correct and pay —and extinguish the action— has time limits; letting it expire closes off a valuable way out.

Common myths about financial crimes

Checklist when facing a financial investigation

If your company or you receive the first sign of an investigation —a summons, a formal notice, a search of the premises—, this order of priorities helps you avoid losing ground:

• Identify the specific statutory offense and the core conduct verb attributed to you: defending against an estafa is not the same as defending against money laundering.
• Gather and preserve —without altering it— the relevant financial documentation: contracts, bank statements, minutes, accounting records, emails.
• Reconstruct the traceability of the transaction in question: where the money came from, which accounts it passed through, what supports it.
• Check the status of the matter: whether there is a ROS, a criminal investigation, a regulator's proceeding or a risk of extinción de dominio running in parallel.
• Review your due diligence: what controls were in place, what was documented, what shows good faith.
• In tax matters, assess the window for correction and payment before it expires.
• Bring in specialized criminal-law counsel immediately and remain silent in the face of informal requests until you have professional legal defense: an early diagnosis defines the strategy.

The criminal-law diagnosis is the first step

Financial crimes are not met with intuition but with precision: knowing which statutory offense is at stake, which core conduct verb is charged and what is needed to prove or disprove it. That diagnosis is the same one that serves both to prevent and to defend, and it is best done early, before a misunderstood transaction turns into a criminal charge.

At Cafore Abogados we accompany companies and their executives in understanding these risks, in designing prevention and in criminal defense once an investigation is already under way. If you would like to review a specific situation in confidence, you can write to us or call us at 313 8411825.

Laws and case law cited

• Art. 323 of the Código Penal (Ley 599 de 2000, as amended by Ley 1474 de 2011) — money laundering; an offense of mere conduct and autonomous from the predicate offense; imprisonment of 10 to 30 years. Source
• Art. 324 of the Código Penal — specific aggravating circumstances for money laundering where the conduct is carried out by a legal person, company or organization, or by its heads, officers or managers. Source
• Art. 325 of the Código Penal — failure to exercise control by a member of the board of directors, legal representative, officer or employee of a financial institution; imprisonment of 38 to 128 months. Source
• Arts. 316 and 316A of the Código Penal — mass and habitual deposit-taking from the public and failure to return the funds taken in. Source
• Decreto Legislativo 4336 de 2008 and Ley 1357 de 2009 — tightened the offense of unlawful deposit-taking (art. 316) and made its wording permanent after the pyramid-scheme crisis. Source
• Sentencia C-224 de 2009 (Corte Constitucional, M.P. Jorge Iván Palacio Palacio) — upheld as constitutional Decreto 4336 de 2008, which tightened unlawful deposit-taking and created art. 316A during the social emergency of the pyramid schemes. Source
• Art. 246 of the Código Penal — estafa (prior deception that induces the error); imprisonment of 2 to 8 years (32 to 144 months with Ley 890 de 2004). Source
• Art. 249 of the Código Penal — abuso de confianza (appropriation of what was received under a title that does not transfer ownership); imprisonment of 16 to 72 months. Source
• Art. 250A of the Código Penal (added by Ley 1474 de 2011) — private-sector corruption; imprisonment of 4 to 8 years (6 to 10 where there is economic harm). Source
• Art. 250B of the Código Penal (added by Ley 1474 de 2011) — administración desleal; imprisonment of 4 to 8 years. Source
• Art. 326 of the Código Penal (added by Ley 733 de 2002) — testaferrato; imprisonment of 96 to 270 months, without prejudice to decomiso. Source
• Art. 327 of the Código Penal — illicit enrichment by private individuals; imprisonment of 6 to 10 years (96 to 180 months with Ley 890 de 2004). Source
• Art. 433 of the Código Penal (as amended by Ley 1778 de 2016) — transnational bribery; imprisonment of 9 to 15 years, disqualification and a fine of 650 to 50,000 monthly statutory minimum wages. Source
• Arts. 434A and 434B of the Código Penal (as amended by Ley 2277 de 2022) — omission of assets or inclusion of nonexistent liabilities (threshold of 1,000 SMMLV; 48 to 108 months) and tax fraud or tax evasion (threshold from 100 SMMLV; 36 to 60 months). Source
• Ley 890 de 2004 (art. 14) — general increase in the penalties of the Special Part of the Código Penal, which explains the ranges that apply today to estafa and to illicit enrichment. Source
• Ley 1778 de 2016 — administrative liability of legal persons for the bribery of foreign public officials, sanctioned by the Superintendencia de Sociedades. Source
• Ley 526 de 1999 — creates the UIAF as the financial intelligence unit attached to the Ministerio de Hacienda. Source
• Ley 1708 de 2014 — Código de Extinción de Dominio (an action in rem, autonomous, over assets of unlawful origin or unlawful destination). Source
• Sentencia C-191 de 2016 (Corte Constitucional) — examined the constitutionality of parts of art. 323 (money laundering), upholding several of them as constitutional. Source
• Leyes 1819 de 2016, 1943 de 2018 and 2010 de 2019 — tax reforms that created and reinstated the offenses under arts. 434A and 434B, today with the thresholds of Ley 2277 de 2022. Source
• Corte Suprema de Justicia, Sala de Casación Penal, SP10299 de 2014 — mass deposit-taking without authorization (Código Penal, arts. 316 and 316A). Official text.
• Corte Suprema de Justicia, Sala de Casación Penal, case file 40545 of 2013 — deposit-taking, laundering and illicit enrichment in a pyramid scheme. Official text.
• Corte Suprema de Justicia, Sala de Casación Penal, SP7816 de 2016 — autonomy of money laundering from the predicate offense. Official text.
• Corte Suprema de Justicia, Sala de Casación Penal, SP008 de 2023 — administración desleal (Código Penal, art. 250B): fraud and abuse, not bad management. Official text.