COVERAGE

The crime of concealment is regulated in articles 451 to 545 of the Penal Code, which punishes with imprisonment from 6 months to 3 years those persons who, with knowledge of the commission of a crime and without having intervened in it as perpetrator or accomplice, intervenes after its execution, assisting the perpetrators or accomplices to benefit from the proceeds of crime, concealing, altering or rendering useless the corpse, effects or instruments of a crime to prevent its discovery or assisting those suspected of committing a crime to evade investigation by the authorities or to evade search or capture.

In order to appreciate this crime, in any of its modalities, the following common circumstances or elements must concur:

• Prior commission of a crime.
• That the subject has not intervened in such crime as perpetrator or accomplice. Therefore, self-deception is not punishable.
• That the subject knows of the commission of the covert crime.

What is the crime of concealment and what are its modalities? According to Article 451 of the Penal Code, the perpetrator’s conduct may consist of:

1. Assisting the perpetrators or accomplices of the prior offense to benefit from the proceeds of the offense.
2. Concealing, altering or rendering useless the body, effects or instruments of the prior offense to prevent its discovery.
3. Helping the alleged perpetrators of a crime to evade investigation by the authorities or to evade search or capture. In order for this conduct to be punishable under criminal law, any of the following circumstances must be present:
4. The covert act constitutes treason, murder of the King or Queen, genocide, crimes against humanity, crimes against persons and property protected in armed conflict, rebellion, terrorism, homicide, piracy, trafficking in human beings or illegal trafficking in organs.
5. That the favoring party has acted with abuse of public functions.

The term of imprisonment imposed for the crime of concealment may not exceed the term of imprisonment for the concealed crime. If the latter is punished with a penalty of a different nature (for example, with a fine), the custodial sentence shall be replaced by a fine of 6 to 24 months, unless the concealed offense has a penalty equal to or less than the latter, in which case the penalty for that offense shall be imposed in its lower half (art. 452 of the Criminal Code).

Finally, they cannot be punished as accessories to their spouse or person to whom they are linked in a stable manner by an analogous relationship of affection, their ascendants, descendants, siblings or relatives in the same degree (art. 454 of the Criminal Code). However, this exception is not applicable to the criminal modality of helping the perpetrators or accomplices of a crime to benefit from the proceeds of the crime.