Abstract

The expansion of the use of cryptocurrencies in financial transactions, in addition to creating new economic opportunities, has paved the way for more complex forms of financial crimes, including money laundering. One of the most important legal issues in this area is the difficulty of proving the moral element of the crime of money laundering in the context of cryptocurrency transactions. In criminal law, the realization of the crime of money laundering requires the perpetrator to be aware of the criminal origin of the property and his intention to conceal or change the nature of the proceeds of the crime. However, the technical characteristics of cryptocurrencies, including the relative anonymity of users, the decentralized structure of blockchain networks, the high speed of asset transfers, and the possibility of conducting cross-border transactions, pose serious challenges to the process of establishing the perpetrators' knowledge and criminal intent. This study, with a descriptive-analytical approach and relying on criminal law sources and regulations related to combating money laundering, examines the most important obstacles to proving the moral element in cryptocurrency-based money laundering in Iranian law. The research findings show that the difficulty of attributing cryptocurrency addresses to natural persons, the possibility of using technical means to conceal identity, conducting transactions without traditional financial intermediaries, and the complexity of analyzing transaction flows are among the factors that make it difficult to prove the perpetrator's knowledge of the criminal origin of the assets. In such circumstances, the judicial authority is forced to use a set of evidence and evidence, including unconventional transaction patterns, financial connections between individuals, cryptocurrency exchange data, and technical expert reports, to establish the spiritual element.