Two men have been charged in relation to a highly controversial anonymous website Les Dossiers du Rocher, which accuses Prince Albert II’s inner circle of dodgy property deals in the Principality.  

In late 2021, a website called Les Dossiers du Rocher began posting confidential documents and emails online alleging fraud, cronyism and corruption within Monaco’s highly lucrative world of property and real estate. 

The primary targets of the website’s tirade were four men with very close links to Prince Albert II: his chief of staff Laurent Anselmi; his lawyer and childhood friend Thierry Lacoste; the president of Monaco’s Supreme Court, Didier Linotte; and the Prince’s personal wealth manager Claude Palmero. 

Now, a little over a year since the website first went live, two men have been charged.  

Only identified as Frédéric C and Didier G – or as a Belgian businessman and a Monegasque lawyer by the Journal du Dimanche – which broke news of their arrests over the weekend, with AFP corroborating facts with prosecutors in Paris – the two men have been charged with illegally accessing private information and notably the “concealment of attacks on an automated data processing system”. Other potential charges include “fraudulent extraction of data from a computer system and interception of electronic correspondence”, according to prosecutors.

They were arrested on Tuesday 25th October and were charged two days later on Thursday 27th October.  

Early in the scandal, Prince Albert acknowledged the “inadmissible acts” as an attempt to “destabilise” the property sector in Monaco. Speaking to the Monaco Matin shortly after the website launched, he said, “I condemn this defamatory and anonymous campaign of false rumors and slander, which targets several servants of the Principality.”  

The controversial site is no longer accessible, although the domain is up for sale for a staggering 10,499€.