Casablanca Financial Scandal: Massive Money Laundering Scheme Uncovered

The controllers of the National Financial Intelligence Authority have discovered that significant amounts have been paid to the owner of the company by the manager of a group of companies, without any accounting justification and without the knowledge of the other partners. The funds were intended to finance transactions. In reality, these were fictitious transactions. These funds were limited to mediation operations with public institutions. The purpose was to obtain benefits, such as tax or customs exemptions, in exchange for returning the money to the initial beneficiaries and their accomplices, after deducting a commission.

The investigation teams, in coordination with the Directorate General of Taxes and after consulting the relevant bank accounts, noted the absence of any declaration concerning millions of dirhams withdrawn from the group’s coffers and transferred to the head of the company through bank transfers, according to sources at Hespress. These funds were officially presented as intended for mediation missions in the acquisition of real estate - some belonging to the State, others to individuals - or in the purchase of company shares. Except that it was found that none of these transactions had been carried out and that some operations had even been masked by the issuance of falsified invoices, in a manifest attempt at justification and concealment vis-à-vis the control bodies.

According to the controllers, the total value of the fictitious transfers and transactions between the businesswoman’s company and the group of companies over a period of more than seven years is around 100 million dirhams. They also discovered that monetary relations existed between the two parties "before the manager of the group incited the businesswoman to create her own company, to which he then transferred millions of dirhams under suspicious conditions, via accounts opened in the name of a partner, members of his family and his employees," the same sources said.