Get out as quickly as possible. The government of Monaco was placed on Friday on the grey list of “enhanced surveillance” of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the body responsible for combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism. It said it was determined to get off it quickly.
“A timetable has been decided, which extends over a year and a half (…). The Principality confirms its determination to implement the latest FATF recommendations (…), in accordance with the planned deadlines,” declared the Monegasque government in a press release.
Although Monaco was added, along with Venezuela, to the grey list by the FATF, the international organisation’s press release “nevertheless recognises the significant progress made by the Principality on several of the actions that had been recommended by Moneyval”, the Monegasque government emphasised.
But the FATF has also identified several areas in which Monaco must make progress, particularly in terms of money laundering and tax fraud committed abroad, the seizure of criminal assets abroad, the level of resources allocated to magistrates, the application of effective and dissuasive sanctions, and the increase in the seizure of property suspected of coming from criminal activities.
Already pinned by the Council of Europe
In January 2023, Moneyval, the anti-money laundering body of the Council of Europe, highlighted Monaco on the effectiveness of “supervision, investigations and prosecutions in matters of money laundering and confiscation of proceeds of crime » as well as in matters of terrorist financing. He called for “fundamental improvements.”
The Monegasque National Council has since adopted nine new laws in 16 months, the last in March, mainly to strengthen the Monegasque Financial Security Authority (AMSF) and the anti-money laundering legal arsenal.
The FATF statement on Friday “underlines the strengthening of means to combat the financing of terrorism, the creation of a new financial intelligence and surveillance authority, the implementation of targeted financial sanctions and supervision of associations based on a risk assessment,” lists the government of Monaco, a small and extremely wealthy Principality on the Côte d’Azur.
Monaco had already been included on a gray list of OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) tax havens in April 2009, but left it in September 2009 after embarking on a major transparency operation. This resulted in tax cooperation agreements with dozens of countries over the following years.