Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Measures in France: FATF Report Summary

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Key Points Discussed

Risk Assessment

• France has a good understanding of money laundering (ML) risks, which is shared among competent authorities.
• However, there is less development in this area for some DNFBP supervisory authorities.

National Policies

• France pays particular attention to counter-finance terrorism (CFT) issues and has achieved compelling results.
• Law enforcement policies and activities reflect the identified risks adequately, but resource allocation remains necessary for effective ML investigations.

Cooperation and Coordination

• The Central Office for Combating Laundering and Financial Crimes (COLB) ensures effective cooperation and coordination at the national level.
• However, cooperation between authorities responsible for supervising the same DNFBP sector still needs to be further developed.

Financial Intelligence

• France regularly uses financial intelligence to investigate ML cases, associated predicate offenses, and terrorist financing (TF).
• The TRACFIN plays a key role in enriching financial intelligence courtesy of various sources of information.

Investigation and Prosecution

• France is very active in investigating complex and highly complex ML cases, with an average of 1,100 investigations, 1,700 persons prosecuted, and 1,300 convictions for ML per year.

Sanctions

• The sanctions imposed are generally effective, proportionate, and dissuasive.

Areas for Improvement

• Further development of cooperation between authorities responsible for supervising the same DNFBP sector
• Optimization of information exploitation by TRACFIN
• Increase in the dissemination of information
• Allocation of resources dedicated to ML investigations in local and OM investigation services, as well as in judicial investigations
• Lack of specialized investigators