Background
On October 1, 2024, customs officers stopped a vehicle driven by [A] [V] [W] near the Spanish border after it entered France from Spain. The officers found €29,850, which the driver acknowledged he had not declared. They notified him of a violation of the cash-declaration requirements and temporarily detained the money under Article L. 152-4 of the Monetary and Financial Code.
The driver challenged the detention under Article L. 152-5. On May 22, 2025, the president of the investigating chamber of the Montpellier Court of Appeal ordered the measure lifted and the money returned. The court reasoned that merely stating that the accompanied-cash declaration requirement had not been met was insufficient because the detention decision identified no indications that the money was connected to criminal activity. The Customs and Indirect Duties Administration and the public prosecutor general filed connected appeals to the Court of Cassation.
The Court’s Holding
The Criminal Chamber quashed the order in its entirety. First, it held that proceedings on an appeal from a customs cash-detention decision must be fair and adversarial. Because customs is the prosecuting party, the president of the investigating chamber may decide the appeal only if customs has appeared or has been summoned to appear at the request of the public prosecutor general. Customs had not been summoned to the hearing, although the prosecution and the driver’s lawyer attended.
Second, the court held that a failure to comply with the cash-declaration requirement is by itself sufficient to justify temporary detention under Article L. 152-4 of the Monetary and Financial Code. Evidence suggesting a connection to criminal activity is required only under Article L. 152-4-1, which applies to cash below the declaration threshold or cash that was declared. The court remanded the case to a differently composed panel of the president’s jurisdiction within the Montpellier Court of Appeal for reconsideration.
Key Takeaways
- Customs must be permitted to appear and defend a temporary cash-detention decision when the traveler challenges it.
- Under Article L. 152-4, the failure to declare cash is sufficient to authorize temporary detention; customs need not also identify indications of criminal activity.
- The criminal-activity-indicia requirement under Article L. 152-4-1 concerns cash below the declaration threshold or cash that has already been declared.
Why It Matters
The decision clarifies both the procedural and substantive rules governing French customs detention of cash. Reviewing courts must preserve an adversarial process by ensuring that customs is heard or properly summoned, and they may not import Article L. 152-4-1’s criminal-activity requirement into cases based on an outright declaration violation under Article L. 152-4.
For travelers and counsel, the ruling confirms that a challenge cannot succeed merely because the initial detention decision lacks evidence connecting undeclared cash to crime. For customs authorities, it confirms a lower statutory threshold when the applicable declaration obligation was violated.