Collecting Payments, Selling Cards, Withdrawing Cash: Where Concealing Criminal Proceeds Ends and Aiding Cybercrime Begins

Why can selling a card, collecting a payment or withdrawing cash amount to concealing criminal proceeds? This article sets out the elements, the inference of knowledge, the boundaries with aiding cybercrime and money laundering, and the main lines of defence.

A consultation that keeps recurring

In the past two years one type of consultation has come up with striking frequency: a bank card lent to a friend to receive a few payments, or collecting money on someone's behalf, withdrawing cash, transferring funds as instructed — and later the police open a case for concealing criminal proceeds. The person is usually bewildered: I was only doing a favour, I did not join any fraud, I did not know the money was dirty — how am I a suspect? The real dispute in these cases is rarely whether money moved. It is whether the person knew what the money was. Knowledge is a subjective fact, provable only by inference from conduct. Understanding that inferential logic is where the defence begins.

Three layers, all of which must be present

Article 312 of the Criminal Law provides that whoever, knowing that property is the proceeds of a crime or income derived therefrom, hides, transfers, purchases, sells on another's behalf, or otherwise conceals or disguises it, commits the crime of concealing or disguising criminal proceeds and income, punishable by fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years, criminal detention or surveillance, with a fine or a fine alone; where circumstances are serious, by three to seven years with a fine. A unit may also commit this crime. Structurally there are three layers: an upstream crime exists and the proceeds have been verified; the actor carried out an act of hiding, transferring, purchasing, selling or otherwise concealing; and the actor knew the property came from crime. All three are required. Whether the upstream crime is established and whether the proceeds are specifically identified are points that are easily overlooked.

How knowledge is proved

Knowledge covers actual knowledge and what one ought to have known. Courts do not require an admission of “I knew it was dirty money”; they infer it from the case as a whole: whether the price clearly deviated from the market, whether delivery was abnormal, whether other people's accounts were used to pass funds, whether traces were deliberately avoided, the relationship with the upstream offender, the person's occupation and capacity to understand, and any later collusion or destruction of records. Inference can be rebutted. The value of counsel lies in restoring each “abnormality” to a plausible explanation: a used-car dealer who bought below market price may show that he checked the vehicle documents, registration and seller identity as industry practice requires, and that the discount reflected condition and a rushed sale — then “obviously low price” may not hold. Conversely, late-night transactions, cash settlement and deliberately changing contact details sharply narrow the room for explanation.

The boundary with aiding cybercrime

The most frequent confusion is with aiding information-network criminal activity (Article 287-2). Both appear in “selling cards”, “running payments” and “collecting on behalf” cases, but they are legally different. Aiding cybercrime punishes help rendered while the upstream crime is being committed — technical support, advertising, payment settlement — requiring knowledge that another is using the information network to commit crime; the maximum is three years. Concealment punishes dealing with the proceeds after the upstream crime is complete, requiring knowledge that the property is criminal proceeds; where circumstances are serious, the maximum is seven years. The dividing line is timing and the content of knowledge: had the upstream fraud already succeeded when the money entered the account — was the person helping commit the crime, or helping hide the money? The same conduct may violate both, in which case the heavier provision generally applies. That is why the choice of charge often decides between a three-year and a seven-year ceiling, and is one of the most worthwhile battlegrounds in these cases.

Money laundering is a further distinction

One further distinction matters: money laundering (Article 191). Its predicate offences are confined to seven categories — drug crimes, organized crime of a mafia nature, terrorist activity, smuggling, corruption and bribery, crimes disrupting financial management order, and financial fraud. Concealment covers other predicate offences. Different predicate offences bring different jurisdiction, sentencing and defence routes. Since the Eleventh Amendment to the Criminal Law in 2021, concealing one's own criminal proceeds is also money laundering; “self-laundering” is no longer automatically absorbed by the predicate offence.

The amount: turnover is not the proceeds

Statutory thresholds and “serious circumstances” are assessed by combining amount with circumstances under the judicial interpretation, not by turnover alone. This is crucial in defence: bank statements record total fund movements, may include the same money recycled and counted repeatedly, and may mix in legitimate business payments; the offence measures the actual amount of criminal proceeds and income. Equating turnover with the offence amount is a common error that must be stripped away transaction by transaction using ledgers, contracts and records. Restitution, acceptance of guilt and punishment, and first-time or occasional offending also materially affect the outcome. Where the amount barely clears the threshold, knowledge is contested and involvement was peripheral, a non-prosecution decision or a suspended sentence is not out of reach.

Five lines of defence

In practice, defence usually runs along five lines: first, whether the upstream crime is established and the proceeds identified — without an upstream offence the charge has no foundation; second, attacking the evidence of knowledge, distinguishing general awareness from specific knowledge and showing that the inference rests on facts capable of other explanations; third, verifying the amount and stripping out legitimate funds and double counting; fourth, resisting a finding of “serious circumstances” so as to keep sentencing below three years; fifth, securing mitigating factors — restitution, candid confession, voluntary surrender, accessory status, and whether the conduct fell within ordinary business practice. Note that the evidence in these cases is mainly electronic: chat logs, transfer receipts, account statements, location data. They are the prosecution's core and also where contradictions most often surface — do the times match, do the amounts reconcile, has the conversational context been truncated?

Three lines for individuals and businesses

For ordinary people, three lines are worth remembering: never lend or rent out bank cards, payment accounts or receiving QR codes to anyone; never collect or pass on funds of unknown origin for people you do not know well, especially where payment is a commission per transaction; and stay alert to deals priced far below market that demand cash and quick closing. For businesses, used cars, scrap recycling, gold and jewellery, mobile phones and electronics, and logistics are sectors under closer scrutiny. Keeping customer identity checks, transaction records and an abnormal-transaction reporting system is both a compliance requirement and the strongest material for later proving that one did not know.

Conclusion

Concealment of criminal proceeds looks like “just doing a favour”, yet it determines whether victims of the upstream crime recover anything — and whether the person involved keeps his liberty. Whether an offence exists, which offence it is, and whether circumstances are serious all leave room for professional judgement. Once a case arises, bringing counsel in early and clarifying the two threads of knowledge and amount during the investigation stage is usually far more effective than repairing matters at trial.

※ This article is general legal information, not legal advice on any specific matter. For your individual case, please consult a lawyer.