The Dutch branch of Louis Vuitton has agreed to pay a 500,000 euro ($594,000) settlement in connection with a money laundering case, public prosecutors in the Netherlands announced on Thursday.
Louis Vuitton did not “adequately verify the identity of customers who repeatedly spent large sums of cash over an extended period,” Dutch prosecutors said in a statement, saying the French luxury brand had violated a money laundering and terrorism financing act.
Dutch prosecutors started looking into Louis Vuitton last summer for potential violations of money-laundering regulations while investigating a case against a Chinese woman who was accused of laundering millions of euros in an international scheme.
Law enforcement officials in the Netherlands said at the time that the woman’s purchasing patterns at Louis Vuitton stores should have alerted the shops to wrongdoing and questioned whether the company should have raised alarms.
Louis Vuitton did not immediately respond to a request for comment and, a representative for the company could not immediately be reached on Thursday.
Prosecutors have accused the 36-year-old woman at the center of the case of laundering more than 2 million euros ($2.4 million) from September 2021 to February 2023.
According to prosecutors, the woman — who has been identified publicly only as Bei W., in accordance with Dutch law — purchased expensive bags in the Netherlands with illicit money she received from another individual. She sent the bags to China in cardboard boxes to be resold them there, which in turn made it seem as if the proceeds were coming from a legitimate trade.
She is still on trial, along with two other people: Another woman who is accused of helping Bei W. keep track of her purchases and a man who worked for Louis Vuitton at the time and is accused of helping Bei W. stay below the 10,000-euro threshold that would trigger cash transaction reporting obligations.
The participants in the scheme allegedly made use of a surrogate shopping system known as “daigou,” in which purchasers abroad shop on behalf of someone in China. The goods purchased are often less expensive abroad and, in the case of luxury brands, less likely to raise concerns about authenticity.
“Evidence for this comes from numerous chat messages, receipts, and security camera footage. The boxes, ready for the trip to China, were found in her home,” prosecutors said in a statement on Thursday.
The prosecutor’s office said it was disposing of the case against Louis Vuitton because “the limited capacity at the Rotterdam court forces the public prosecution service to make choices to free up time for other cases,” according to the statement.
Claire Moses is a Times reporter in London, focused on coverage of breaking and trending news.
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