Page 11 - MONACO LAW REVIEW 2025-2

MONACO LAW REVIEW | DECEMBER 2025 | SPECIAL REPORT
Prevention also relies on a strengthened requirement of
transparency for legal persons and legal arrangements, in
order to address the risk that they may be misused for money-
laundering or terrorist-fi nancing purposes. The aim is to
prevent entities from being diverted to conceal identities or the
origin or destination of illicit funds. The resulting obligations
require entities, in particular, to identify and declare their
benefi cial owners and to maintain and provide the authorities
with certain essential information. All such information is
centralised in administrative registers maintained by the
Business Development Agency and the Ministry of Interior,
to which the competent authorities, including the AMSF, have
direct access.
Enforcement: Administrative
and Criminal Sanctions
To ensure that obliged entities comply with the obligations
described above, the law provides for a system of
administrative sanctions that is both proportionate and
dissuasive. Following a formal notice, sanctions may include
a fi ne or, where appropriate, the suspension or withdrawal
of an authorisation to carry out an activity. For fi nancial
institutions, the fi nes may reach several million euros, and
sanctions may be published where the seriousness of the
breach so justifi es.
In criminal matters, the offence of money laundering seeks
to prevent illicit proceeds from being presented as legitimate
after a series of operations. By defi nition, money laundering
is always connected to the commission of a prior offence,
carried out upstream, which generates the illicit funds and is
commonly referred to as the “predicate offence.”
To this end, Monegasque law has adopted a broad defi nition
of money laundering. Article 218 of the Criminal Code
criminalises all forms of conduct characterising money
laundering that are typically captured by international
standards: it thus covers the conversion or transfer of the
proceeds of an offence; the concealment or disguise of the
nature, origin, location, disposition, movement or ownership
of the proceeds of an offence; the acquisition, possession or
use of the proceeds of an offence; and participation in any
of the aforementioned offences, as well as any other form
of association, agreement, attempt or complicity through
the provision of assistance, support or advice with a view
to their commission. The offence of money laundering
may, furthermore, be made out even where the offence that
generated the funds was committed abroad, provided that
this offence is punishable both in the State where it was
committed and in the Principality, save for a limited number
of serious offences –.
Since 2018, Article 218-4 of the Criminal Code has introduced
a presumption of illicit origin, which allows the authorities
to presume that funds derive from criminal activity where
the circumstances of the transaction cannot reasonably be
explained other than by an intention to conceal their origin
or their actual benefi ciary. Where this presumption applies,
the judicial authorities are no longer required to identify
the principal offence that generated the funds in order to
establish the offence of money laundering.
In addition to the general offence of money laundering,
Monegasque law also provides for the offences of negligent
money laundering1 and money laundering of the proceeds
of drug traffi cking2, thereby completing the enforcement
framework.
The penalties are severe and particularly dissuasive: between
fi ve and ten years’ imprisonment and fi nes ranging from
EUR 18,000 to EUR 90,000, the latter being capable of being
multiplied tenfold; and up to twenty years’ imprisonment
in cases of aggravated money laundering, with the fi ne
being capable of being multiplied by twenty. The expanded
confi scation regime3 and precautionary seizure measures4
also ensure the effective deprivation of illicit gains.
A Strengthened Set of Procedural Tools
and International Cooperation
The fi ght against money laundering also relies on a
modernised set of procedural instruments, including an
extension of the limitation period to ten years, a broadening
of the jurisdiction of the Monegasque courts to cover
offences committed abroad, and the possible use of special
investigative techniques (interception of communications,
geolocation, undercover operations). These targeted
investigative tools enable the detection and prosecution of
complex fi nancial schemes, which are often transnational
in nature. International cooperation complements this
framework to ensure the seam effi ciency of cross-border
criminal proceedings.
1| Article 218-2 of the Criminal Code.
2| Law No. 890 of 1 July 1970 on narcotic drugs, as amended.
3| Article 12 of the Criminal Code.
4| Article 596-1 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
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