Monegasque law 890, Article 4-3, modified by law 23/12/1992, provides for a penalty of ten to twenty years imprisonment for any transfer through one's own account or someone else's account of funds or titles from abroad into the principality, or vice versa, that come directly or indirectly from financial recycling operations.
The Prince already knew the identities of persons contravening this law and persons who gave the principality a bad name (in the eyes of the intelligence community) due to their illicit arms dealing and money laundering.
The big question was this: Did Albert possess the cojones to do anything about it?
One of spymaster Robert Eringer's valued assets asked him an even more pertinent question: "Does Albert want to run Monaco or does he want Monaco to run him?"
At the time, Eringer thought this to be impertinent. He truly believed the new Sovereign wanted to run Monaco, not the other away around. And he truly believed Albert wanted to crack down on criminality.
Eringer returned to a Monaco in mourning in mid-April and strolled the Palace forecourt beneath gloomy skies, viewing sympathy floral arrangements in long rows, inspecting whom each was from. He later jotted in his journal: The bigger the bouquet, the dirtier the deal.
He added: The good guys are mourning, but the bad guys aren't slowing down-they're working double-time. So we need to work triple time.
Inside the Cathedral, Rainier lay buried beneath a concrete slab, next to Princess Grace.
With hereditary issues in sight, the Italian press focused on Jazmin Grace Grimaldi, the Prince's illegitimate daughter.
It was the Prince's plan to lay low in Monaco through the three-month mourning period, except for a brief trip to Singapore in July for an International Olympic Committee meeting to vote on the whereabouts of the 2012 Olympics.
The Prince could not bring himself to sleep at the Palace, intimidated as he was by his father's lingering presence. And he was angry at the audacity of someone named Jean-Paul Carteron, who, on the death of Prince Rainier, had written him a three-page letter with instructions on how to run his principality. So angry, in fact, the Prince tasked Eringer to target the Monaco-based Carteron for investigation.
On April 26th (2005), the Sovereign Prince visited M-Base in a black suit and tie, his daily uniform during the mourning period. He seemed shell-shocked and told Eringer in the elevator going up he was "getting by," having just returned from the family apartment in Paris to go through his father's personal possessions. Brother-in-law Prince Ernst of Hanover was unwell and hospitalized with a pancreatic disorder from years of abusing alcohol; sister Princess Caroline had taken to her bed for three days with sciatic-nerve back pain; and Princess Stephanie was said to be feeling guilt for all the pain she had caused her father through her wild ways.
Eringer had strung a black tie over the inscribed photo of Rainier and Albert. The Prince, Eringer, and his deputy, Piers, sat beneath it as Albert read letters of condolence channeled from CIA Director Porter Goss and U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss.
The spymaster had a number of items on his agenda.
Expansion of liaison partnerships: Eringer proposed cultivating relationships with other intelligence services, including the French DST.
The Prince's response: Do it.
Franck Biancheri: Eringer had heard a number of rumors about the finance minister becoming known around town as "Prince Rainier IV."
The Prince requested additional information on Biancheri. Everybody in Monaco, including Biancheri himself, believed he would be the Prince's choice for chef de cabinet (chief of staff), a crucial position that would run day-to-day activities at the Palace.
Operation Hound Dog: Keep going, the Prince instructed, with this, his favorite operation.
Tamara Rotolo and illegitimate daughter Jazmin Grace Grimaldi: The Prince informed Eringer that negotiations were underway with his New York-based attorney, Bobby Marx.
Eringer offered to assist.
The Prince replied: "Could you arrange for her to have an accident?"
Eringer thought Albert was kidding, but the Prince did not smile.
Even if he were kidding, such a remark was in such poor taste, Eringer let it pass without response, resulting in an awkward silence.
After the Prince departed ten minutes later, Eringer said to Piers, "Did I hear right or was that my imagination?"
Piers confirmed that he had heard it, too.
In other times, a flippant remark by a monarch was all it took to cause murder and mayhem. "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?" King Henry II of England was said to have uttered out loud. Four knights obliged him. They followed Archbishop Thomas Becket into Canterbury Cathedral and, armed with swords, hacked him to death.
Eringer's investigation of the Jazmin Grace Grimaldi matter left no doubt in his mind that the pretty young teen was genuinely Albert's daughter, even though the Prince and his lawyer, Thierry Lacoste, continued to spew bald-faced lies to the media, striving to hide the truth about Albert's paternity.
Jazmin morally deserved her father's financial support, which had been zilch since her birth thirteen years earlier.
Certainly, Jazmin did not deserve for her own father to suggest that "an accident" be arranged for her.
Clearly, something was terribly wrong with the Prince's judgment.
And it did not bode well for the Principality of Monaco.