Current legislation requires credit entities and white-collar professionals (lawyers, tax advisors and notaries, among others) to have action protocols and risk controls to detect if any of their clients use their services to launder money.

Entities and professions that can be used to launder money must apply a ‘reinforced’ risk control policy when their clients are national or foreign ‘political people’ , that is, all people with a potential for political relationship (head of state, head of government, ministers, secretaries of state or undersecretaries, parliamentarians, members of the Supreme and Constitutional Court as well as ambassadors or members of the administrative bodies of public companies, as well as the parents, brothers and children of the person of the political area ‘ and their spouses or partners, elected officials of the local and regional administration, such as mayors and regional presidents).

Additionally, all persons put on file for money laundering crimes, arms trafficking, drug trafficking and others must be watched.

For practical purposes, this means that banks and other financial entities, casinos, notaries, lawyers, real estate agents or tax advisors, among other professions, must have adequate procedures to determine if their client is a ‘person in the political field’.