Corruption and Money Laundering as Legal and Social Phenomena: Causes, Phenomenology, Consequences

New tendency in social, political and economic relationships for the purpose of incorporating a domestic economy into international economic and financial transactions brings about a new and yet old forms of economic criminal offences which are believed to be much more profitable and less risky and it is even assumed that there are no adequate mechanisms of opposition. In this paper we have tried to point out that corruption and money laundering represent one of the leading challenges of modern social changes along with a harmful consequences of the impact of “laundered” money in regular social developments. Detrimental effect of accumulating financial and capital assets by criminal circles was, during the last decades of the last century and in the beginning of a new millennium, followed by the appropriate activities both of domestic legislation and of OUN, the European Council and European Union reaching a high level of consensus about crucial principles and the necessity of recognizing a financial side of corruption and money laundering and their use in fight against this invisible and hidden activity. Corruption and money laundering are the biggest sociological obstacles in the long run for successful work and progress. The most important conditions for their suppression are: the establishment of comprehensive preventive and repressive systemic control as well as political will to combat and prevent these socially undesirable behaviors