Drug Money Laundering: Underground Bankers in Morocco Aid Traffickers, French Official Warns

"Traffickers call on underground bankers, the ’sarafs’ or brokers, who ensure the collection of drug money and its injection into the legal economy. They are in contact with dishonest business leaders in particular. They need cash to pay undeclared employees or to pay them undeclared bonuses. These entrepreneurs buy these cash payments against bank transfers justified by false invoices," said Anne-Sophie Coulbois in an interview with the newspaper Le Parisien.

"And finally, the money reaches the trafficker’s pocket by bank transfer, after multiple bounces. We find them, for example, in the construction and public works or in private security, which are sectors of activity that have a great need for unskilled labor," she continued, adding that these unscrupulous companies also use this cash to buy materials, driving prices down.

According to the explanations of the head of the OCRGDF, behind the traffickers is a real underground banking system that operates on the hawala, the given word. "It is a system of money transfer by compensation that offers unlimited possibilities. Everyone benefits from it, the criminals but also ordinary people who want to avoid the formalities," she said, noting that these Sarafs live rather in Morocco, where the cannabis producers are also located. "Today, many of them have moved to Dubai. In fact, there is always a money laundering contract that is concluded between the trafficker who needs to transform millions of euros in cash into legal money and these money laundering specialists."

The work of the sarafs, she explained, is to organize the collections and find outlets for the money, thanks to contacts with the Chinese community in the clothing trade or with construction bosses. What about other money laundering methods? "Car trafficking is also a solution to launder drug money. Some traffickers go to Germany to buy beautiful sedans in cash that are resold abroad, like in Algeria," the official said, assuring that the OCRGDF still manages to seize the ill-gotten goods of criminals, even abroad. "We manage to identify them with a few black spots in Dubai, Southeast Asia or the Maghreb. And we respond to requests from foreign police forces, it’s an exchange," she said.