”Jag ville bara hjälpa till” - En studie av domstolars uppsåtbedömning i penningtvätts-brott utifrån ett rättssäkerhetsperspektiv

Sammanfattning: Rule of law is a fundamental requirement for a functioning society. To in-crease individuals' trust in the state, it is necessary to protect the individual against arbitrary application of the law. Guaranteeing citizens' equality before the law and the predictability of laws increases legal certainty. Unfortunately, legal certainty does not always correlate with the application of Sweden's laws. The Act (2014:307) on penalties for money laundering offenses is an example of inconsistent application of the law. Due to the high frequency of cases in court, there is a large selection of judgments to analyze. As gang crime increases, so do the financial gains from, for example, the sale of weapons and drugs. Money laundering therefore becomes a very useful tool for criminals to transform dirty money into clean. Individuals are often tricked into advanced money laundering schemes in the belief that they are simply helping a fellow human being. Despite their good intentions, these individuals are frequently convicted of money laundering offenses. This paper therefore analyzes the application of the money laundering offense and its assessment of intent from a legal certainty perspective. Using the prin-ciples of legality, conformity and equality, which are included in the concept of legal certainty, the assessment of intent in money laundering cases is ana-lyzed. With the help of ten cases handled by the Court of Appeal of Skåne and Blekinge in November and December 2023, conclusions have been drawn. The consistent problem in the majority of the cases was that the specific forms of intent were not explicitly stated. In some cases, there was no assessment of intent at all. From a legal security perspective, this is very problematic. The conclusion of this thesis is that there is potential for improvement for the courts regarding the assessment of intent and the formulations in the produced judgments. All to ensure as high a degree of legal certainty as possible.