Casablanca Under Scrutiny: Capital Flight, Offshore Assets and Tax Investigations

The financial regulator has ordered around eighty individuals, including businesspeople and property developers, to justify their ownership of assets and bank accounts outside the country. These taxpayers, targeted by audit procedures, have 21 days to respond to the administration’s requests. This offensive is based on precise data provided by European partners, notably France, Spain and Belgium, במסגרת tax transparency agreements, reports Hespress.

On Bladi.net : Morocco Probes Illegal Fund Transfers in High-Value Real Estate Deals

The investigations uncovered financial arrangements used to circumvent foreign-exchange regulations. The cases under review include the misuse of “foreign-exchange allowances,” in which funds exported to finance children’s studies abroad were converted into real-estate assets without being repatriated. Other cases involve developers collecting the proceeds of property sales made in Morocco to Moroccans residing abroad (MREs) directly in foreign-currency accounts held offshore.

On Bladi.net : Morocco: The Foreign Exchange Office intensifies the fight against money laundering and strengthens its controls

To detect these irregularities, the “foreign-exchange watchdog” now uses advanced technological tools, including artificial intelligence, making it possible to cross-reference national tax files with international land and banking registries. Identified offenders face severe penalties, including fines of up to six times the value of the concealed assets and prison sentences.

This tightening of controls follows the closure, on 31 December 2024, of the final window for voluntary regularization. This amnesty campaign revealed more than two billion dirhams in assets, divided between financial investments and real estate, marking the end of the period of leniency before the current enforcement mechanisms were activated.