Monaco Urged to Intensify Efforts to Combat Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing by Council of Europe’s MONEYVAL
Council of Europe’s MONEYVAL Urges Monaco to Enhance Fight Against ML/TF
Strasbourg, France - In its latest report published on [1st of January, 2023](javascript:new Date(“01/01/2023”));), the Council of Europe’s anti-money laundering and countering the financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) body MONEYVAL urges Monaco to intensify its efforts to combat money laundering (ML) and terrorist financing (TF) by enhancing investigative capacity, boosting asset recovery, and strengthening regulatory oversight.
Areas Requiring Improvements
The European body commended Monaco for some progress in the fight against ML/TF but emphasized the necessity for improvements in several areas, including:
- Investigations and prosecutions: Enhance investigative capacity and prioritize cases to seize, confiscate, and recover proceeds of ML and predicate offenses.
- Confiscation of proceeds of crime: Improve the effectiveness of proceeds of crime confiscation.
- Supervisory systems: Address supervisory deficiencies and ensure that firms and individuals are subject to proper fit and proper checks, risk understanding, unsatisfactory sanctions, and applications of AML/CFT obligations.
Report Findings
The report highlighted the following ML/TF risk understanding effectiveness levels:
- Effective: International cooperation, implementation of UN targeted financial sanctions, and financial intelligence use.
- Moderate: ML/TF risk understanding.
- Inadequate: Transparency of legal persons, TF investigations and prosecutions, supervision, and sanctions.
Additional improvements were called for in sectors including:
- Casinos
- Company services providers
- Trusts
- Virtual assets
Key Concerns
Key concerns raised in the report include:
- Intelligence utilization: Despite the crucial role played by the Monegasque Financial Intelligence Unit (SICCFIN) in producing high-quality financial intelligence, a challenge exists in ensuring that investigative authorities fully utilize this intelligence.
- Lack of TF prosecutions: The report notes a lack of TF prosecutions or convictions, which could not be considered in line with Monaco’s risk profile without adequate risk analysis.
- Awareness-raising and supervision measures: Monaco was encouraged to develop targeted and proportionate measures to address TF and proliferation financing (PF) risks and implement commensurate sanctions.
Monaco’s Response
Monaco is expected to report back to MONEYVAL in December 2024.