That there is corruption in Morocco is recognized by 72% of citizens in a recent official survey.
It is less common for cases of fraud among the ruling class to be aired in the press in full view of public opinion.
The testimony before the police in a Casablanca prison of the Malian drug trafficker Ahmed Ben Brahim, nicknamed the Pablo Escobar of the Sahara, who has accused former Moroccan accomplices and front men of having seized his assets, has led to the arrest of 25 suspects in a of the largest anti-corruption operations in the Maghreb country.
Local media detail that among those arrested are two senior officials of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), integrated into the current coalition Government, linked to construction and public works and the world of football, as well as agents of the security forces. security, officials and jurists.
A sentence of up to 20 years in prison is planned for them.
El Escobar del Sáhara, also known as
El Maliense,
was arrested in 2019 at the Casablanca airport after having traveled from Mauritania, where he had been imprisoned for four years due to an Interpol arrest warrant for drug trafficking.
A Moroccan court sentenced him to 10 years in prison also for being responsible for a multinational drug trafficking plot, as reported by the pan-African seminar published in Paris,
Jeune Afrique
.
Ben Brahim was indicted for directing a network dedicated to distributing Moroccan hashish resin in West Africa, and transporting cocaine shipments brought from Latin America to North African ports with a final destination in Europe.
The drug lord's fortune was valued at tens of millions of euros, with properties in Brazil, Bolivia and Russia, as well as on the Spanish Costa del Sol.
His real estate assets extended from the resort town of Saidia, on the Moroccan Mediterranean coast closest to Algeria, to Casablanca.
A sumptuous villa with large gardens and a luxury apartment, both in the heart of the country's economic capital, were soon occupied by two of his alleged most prominent associates.
The first by Said Naciri, president of the Wydad football club in Casablanca, and the second by Abdeni Biui, president of the Eastern Regional Council of Morocco (whose capital is Oujda) and owner of a public works contracting company.
They have been behind bars since the end of December.
Both are prominent members of the PAM.
El Maliense
declared in prison before the agents of the Central Department of Judicial Investigation, the Moroccan FBI, that his former associates had ambushed him after having bought several trucks from him.
When the police intercepted those vehicles loaded with 40 tons of cannabis resin, he verified that his documentation was still in Ben Brahim's name instead of having passed to a new owner.
Born in the city of Kidal, capital of the Tuareg in Mali, in 1976, Escobar of the Sahara was destined for a life as a shepherd until a chance encounter with a French driver, whom he helped when his car had crashed in the middle of a rally. Paris-Dakar took a turn of fortune in his life.
With the help of the grateful pilot, young Ben Ibrahim soon dedicated himself to importing used vehicles from Europe and trading in gold.
His business later focused on drugs.
It was his constant travels through the region, in which he met tribes and dialects, that made him an expert navigator through the steppes and sands of the Sahel and the Sahara, a favorable space for armed groups, jihadist militias and mafias of all types of trafficking.
Powerful men like Seif al Islam Gaddafi, son of whom he was Libyan dictator until 2011, entrusted him with the most delicate transport missions.
His mother, who was born in Oujda (northeast of Morocco), also opened the doors of the Maghreb to him.
The president of the Wydad football club, Said Naciri, in 2022 in Casablanca.Sebastian Frej/MB Media (Getty Images)
In this city on the border with Algeria he came into contact with Biaui (born in Oujda in 1971), who according to the Moroccan press had served time for robbery in France and for drug trafficking in Spain, before forging an empire in the construction sector. and to become a deputy and member of the Parliament's Infrastructure Commission.
The two teamed up to transport hashish from northern Morocco to West Africa.
In his transits to the Sahara desert through Zagora (south) he met Said Naciri, a regional political chief, who also sold properties of Pablo Escobar of the Sahara and later transferred large amounts of cash to his own account.
In Morocco, the fear of speaking openly about corruption almost seems to have been lost.
Almost three quarters of citizens recognize that fraudulent practices are widespread, according to the survey presented in December by the so-called National Instance for Probity, Prevention and Fight against Corruption, an official body.
In recent years, Morocco has fallen five points on the Transparency International list, falling 21 positions to rank 94th in 2022 among 180 States examined.
In another scandal revealed this month by the Moroccan press, Aziz el Badraui, who presided over Raja, the other big club in Casablanca, between 2022 and 2023, has been arrested, accused of charging commissions in the awarding of public services.
The world of football is being questioned in Morocco as it prepares to organize the African Cup of Nations and the 2030 World Cup, together with Spain and Portugal.
Along with El Badraui, owner of an urban waste collection company, Mohamed Karimin, former deputy and former mayor Buznika, a member of the Istiqlal party, who is also part of the coalition Executive of Prime Minister Aziz Ajanuch, and considered one of the most influential politicians in the Rabat metropolitan area.
The Moroccan affiliate of Transparency International considers it “very worrying” that 29 members of Parliament have been prosecuted in the last five years in corruption cases.
According to the digital information portal Le 360, at least twenty of the 395 members of the House of Representatives (Lower House), who are part of the different political currents, are being judicially investigated.
Among them, half a dozen are already behind bars.
In a twist that has given more projection to the case, the famous Moroccan singer Latifa Raafat admitted before the judge that she had been married for “four months and 10 days” to the Malian drug lord, but denied having had any knowledge of the man's activities. It was her husband.
The housekeeper who was caring for the couple at that time traveled from Spain, where she currently works, to ratify the testimony of her former employer.
Moroccan Minister of Justice, Abdelatif Uahbi, during a debate organized by the MAP news agency in Rabat.
María Traspaderne (EFE)
The Moroccan weekly
Tel Quel
has described the case of Pablo Escobar of the Sahara as one of the biggest scandals recorded in the history of the Sherifian kingdom in which “drug trafficking, politics and business” intermingle.
The young
YouTuber
Reda Tauyni, who has nearly 200,000 subscribers on his channel, was sentenced on Thursday by a Court in Agadir (southwest) to two years in prison, accused of having defamed the Minister of Justice, Abdelatif Uahbi, top leader of the Authenticity and Modernity Party.
Tauyni demanded his resignation in a video broadcast on the social network and blamed him for having introduced those accused of drug trafficking into politics.
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