2020 promises to be a strategic year for Tracfin. The Bercy intelligence unit, which will celebrate its thirtieth
anniversary, is about to go again under the Caudines forks of Gafi, the financial action group
in charge of the fight against money laundering. Its new director, Maryvonne Le Brignonen, insisted on
the importance of this passing exam, during the presentation, on Tuesday, of the annual report on the national analysis
risks. “Particular attention will be paid to the overseas departments and regions, and to the
financial cybercrime,” she said.
FATF's latest assessment, a review by other countries of anti-money laundering policy,
dates back to 2010. Since then, new risks have emerged against which France is seeking to protect itself. the
financing of terrorism has risen to the top of the cell's concerns. In 2018, Tracfin processed
1,718 suspicious transaction reports relating to the financing of terrorism, a figure up 25% from
compared to the previous year. The service sent more than 1,000 notes to intelligence services or
court services.
In its report, Tracfin specifically points to the risk posed by online pots. “Daesh
is no longer a structured organization. But the French-speaking fighters in the arc of crisis need money,
either to stay in the area or to repatriate. There will be a fundamental movement towards these fighters, ”
alert Maryvonne Le Brignonen. About forty professions are required to declare to the agency the
transfers of money which seem contentious to them. Online pots are not subject to this. "But we are
able to obtain the information via communication rights,” she continues.
Identity theft
The other major development over the past ten years has been the rise of financial cybercrime. The
fintechs and virtual currencies have spawned financial crime networks. With the digitization of
business relationships, identity theft practices may have developed.
The report cites the example of two victims of credit card theft. Forged checks were cashed on
accounts opened in their name with an online bank, even though the "selfies" sent for
the opening of the account did not match the photo of their identity card. “Tracfin observes an exposure
importance of players in the Fintech ecosystem to these processes, particularly in the crypto-asset sectors,
crowdfunding and online banking,” the report says.
To combat these practices, Tracfin created an investigation unit in 2018 made up of agents specializing in
financial cybercrime. To go further, the agency calls for the creation of "a reliable and
secure”. An initiative is underway at the Ministries of the Interior, of Justice and at the State Secretariat in charge
Digital to allow each citizen to be reliably identified in the digital sphere.

Among its lines of work, Tracfin also cites the role of real estate, and in particular luxury real estate,
in mounting money laundering strategy. For a long time the cell complained of not seeing
real estate agents and notaries fulfill their obligations to report suspicious transactions. Maryvonne Le
Brignonen welcomed a better involvement of lawyers and notaries. As proof, the Caisses des
pecuniary settlements of lawyers (Carpa), which manage in particular the payment operations of lawyers, “
will voluntarily submit in 2020,” she said.

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