Depositing or Receiving Funds from an Account of a Person other than the party to the Transaction; an Instance of Money Laundering or Criminalization outside JurisdictionMoney laundering is a serious threat to a country's economic system, as it conceals the true source of assets derived from crime, disrupting financial transparency and causing economic instability. In this regard, depositing or receiving funds from third-party accounts in financial

Forughi, Fazlollah; Bazouband, Zahra

doi:10.48308/eclr.2026.240687.1188

Depositing or Receiving Funds from an Account of a Person other than the party to the Transaction; an Instance of Money Laundering or Criminalization outside JurisdictionMoney laundering is a serious threat to a country's economic system, as it conceals the true source of assets derived from crime, disrupting financial transparency and causing economic instability. In this regard, depositing or receiving funds from third-party accounts in financial

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

fazlollah forughi ¹ ^¶

zahra bazouband ²

¹ Associate Professor, Faculty of Law and Political Science, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran. Corresponding Author Email: forughi@shirazu.ac.ir

² PhD., Faculty of Law and Political Science, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran.

https://doi.org/10.48308/eclr.2026.240687.1188

Abstract

Money laundering is a serious threat to a country's economic system, as it conceals the true source of assets derived from crime, disrupting financial transparency and causing economic instability. In this regard, depositing or receiving funds from third-party accounts in financial transactions is one of the common but challenging practices in the legal and banking systems of countries. Although on the surface, this action may be due to transaction facilitation or commercial considerations, in practice it provides a suitable platform for concealing the true origin of funds and laundering the proceeds of crime. To counter this, the Central Bank has announced in a notice that depositing or receiving funds from an account of a person other than the party to the transaction at the time of the transaction is subject to penalties under the Anti-Money Laundering Regulations; This article establishes, using library resources and a descriptive-analytical method, that regardless of the Central Bank's announcement, if malicious intent and the connection of this action with the source crime are established, the use of a third-party account can be prosecuted within the framework of the crime of money laundering. Otherwise, given that this behavior lacks the three elements of Article 2 of the Anti-Money Laundering Law and is not an example of the crime of money laundering and at most can be an example of suspicious transactions, the Central Bank's announcement contains a criminal description of a permissible behavior with a criminal response. In criminalizing this behavior, the three legal, material and psychological elements of the crime have not been taken into account, and its criminal description is contrary to laws and legal principles such as the principles of guarantee contract, remittance, speed in transactions, etc, and it cannot be the basis for punishing individuals, so this announcement is practically ineffective and has no consequences. However, given the importance of the issue, legislation in this field is necessary

Keywords

Money laundering

Central Bank legislation

Criminal liability in financial transactions

Indirect transfer of funds

Unauthorized financial intermediation

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