Customs Fraud Scandal Rocks Morocco: Billions Lost as Import-Export Networks Exploit System Loopholes

The investigations of the customs services are already bearing fruit. They reveal complex networks weaving their links between international trade, banking systems and import and export operations, reports Assabah, adding that the preliminary data confirm that some import-export companies do not limit themselves to falsifying documents to reduce customs duties, but intentionally proceed to manipulate invoices in their own interest.

From these investigations, it also emerges that these companies sometimes inflate invoices in order to justify significant financial transfers abroad, or reduce them to escape the actual taxes and duties. They also sometimes exploit public support for the national product by increasing the value of invoices for local goods. A blatant violation of the law that causes several billion dirhams in losses to the public treasury.

The accomplishment of the task of the competent services requires the use of the Badr computer system and its complete database of declarations, invoices and actual values of imported goods. But it has been found that the exploitation of technical and administrative loopholes in the Badr and Portnet systems has contributed to widening the scope of these manipulations. These practices have also allowed a number of known intermediaries, working with customs clearance companies, to accumulate immense fortunes.