Last Updated on March 31, 2024 by Allison Coe

Prince Albert in a Can
Well this is awkward…
Apparently, Monaco’s longtime Palace CFO may have been involved in some shady stuff, and when he was unceremoniously canned, he decided to spill the tea in the splashiest way possible, handing 20 years of hand-written notebooks to a Le Monde reporter, resulting in an embarrassing media tsunami for the tiny Principality and its ruler Prince Albert II.
Airing a swirling laundromat of dirty laundry, the notebooks allege underhanded deals, hidden bank accounts, informants and spies, backstabbing, embezzlement, a secret apartment, and spectacular spending sprees… all while the Palace was (allegedly) employing underpaid undocumented workers as household help… ouch.
The Palace denies everything and the lawsuits are flying, but at the same time an anonymous wiki-leaks-type website, Les Dossiers du Rocher (The Rock Files) has been disseminating a steady drip of damning documents, the ‘receipts’ as it were, including details of impressive gifts and extravagant allowances to a group that includes some surprising members… Princess Charlene is not going to be happy.
There’s some speculation that this super-sized kerfuffle could ultimately bring down Prince Albert’s rule… but most just take it as par for the course for one of the smallest and richest countries in the world, known for their long-standing and well-deserved reputation for the “most scandals per kilometer of any royal family.”
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