Financial Crime World

Title: Monaco’s Battle Against Financial Crimes: MONEYVAL’s Fifth-Round Evaluation Report

Overview

The European Union’s anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF) body, MONEYVAL, released its fifth-round evaluation report on Monaco on January 23, 2023.

Assessing Monaco’s Progress

Based on an onsite visit conducted in March 2022, the report focuses on assessing Monaco’s progress in preventing and combatting money laundering (ML) and terrorism financing (TF) more rigorously than in previous evaluations.

Monaco’s Current Status

Monaco, an international financial hub, has made some headway but still needs significant improvements in various areas. The country demonstrates a moderate level of effectiveness in the following areas:

  • ML/TF risk understanding
  • International cooperation
  • Private sector compliance
  • Financial intelligence usage
  • TFS implementation

Areas of Concern

There are notable concerns in certain sectors, such as:

  1. Casinos: Inadequately addressed ML concerns.
  2. Company services providers, trusts: Insufficient AML/CFT risk understanding and compliance culture.
  3. Virtual assets: Unregulated sector that poses ML risks.
  4. Organized crime-related and external ML threats: Ongoing challenges.

Challenges Faced by Monegasque Financial Intelligence Unit (SICCFIN)

SICCFIN faces significant challenges due to a lack of human and technical resources. This leads to high-quality analyses that are not fully utilized by investigative authorities.

Suspicious Transaction Reports (STRs)

Banks are the primary source of STRs, but defensive reporting and excessively long transmission times raise concerns about their quality. Designated non-financial businesses and professions (DNFBPs) have subpar AML/CFT risk understanding and compliance culture. The number of STRs from sectors like casinos and jewellers remains insufficient.

Prioritizing ML Investigations and Prosecutions

Monaco needs to prioritize ML investigations and prosecutions more effectively, especially when addressing complex cases requiring parallel financial investigations.

ML Convictions

Although the country has secured convictions for ML involving crime proceeds originating abroad and stand-alone ML convictions, it lacks sufficient progress concerning ML committed by third parties.

Sanctions Imposed

The sanctions imposed remain proportionate but need improvement to effectively deter potential ML activities.

European Union’s Efforts Against Financial Crimes

To read the full report and learn more about the European Union’s efforts against financial crimes, visit the eucrim.eu website.