French Influencer Faces Legal Action Over Alleged Misuse of Charity Funds for Moroccan Orphanage

The Atlas Kinder association, in charge of the orphanage, and defended by Me Yassine Bouzrou, announced on Friday that it wants to file a complaint for "breach of trust" and "misappropriation of funds" against the influencer with 1.4 million subscribers, her cousin Soukaina El Mizeb, also an influencer, and against the Bel Niya association. The association also plans to file a complaint against the two influencers for defamation and harassment, reports Le Parisien, specifying that these two complaints should be filed by the end of the week.

Under her real name Kenza Benchrif, Poupette Kenza relayed a fundraiser for the Moroccan orphanage on the CotizUp platform, after visiting the establishment in early June. The orphanage, based 30 km from Marrakech in Morocco, and housing 185 abandoned children in 22 houses in the village of Dar Bouidar, should receive the funds managed by the Bel Niya association, in collaboration with "about twenty associations all over Africa". Just over 11,000 euros have been raised since the launch of this fundraiser in October 2021. Thanks to the notoriety of the two influencers Poupette Kenza and her cousin Soukaina, 200,000 euros would have been finally raised.

At the end of the operation, the Moroccan orphanage did not receive the fundraiser. During a meeting held in mid-June, "Demba D. (pseudonym), treasurer of the Bel Niya association and husband of the president, openly acknowledged his intention to return only part of the funds, i.e. an amount of 28,000 euros," Atlas Kinder said in a note, adding that part of the jackpot "was to be paid to the influencer Poupette as well as to her team". Bel Niya ended up transferring just over 134,000 euros to Atlas Kinder. What about the rest of the fundraiser? Mystery. For a few weeks, the two parties have been accusing each other on social networks.

Poupette Kenza claims her "innocence". "We didn’t do anything at all," she said Friday in a live on her Instagram account. For their part, representatives of the Bel Niya association explained in the same live that they will "redistribute the money to other orphaned children". "We have the funds, it’s us who make the decisions today. We are facing a dishonest and ill-intentioned structure," they said. Poupette Kenza and her cousin Soukaïna, in turn, accused them of "betrayal", calling their general manager a "scammer".

Some donors denounce a "deception". "Initially, other causes had not been mentioned" for this fundraiser, insists the Internet user Iamnotyou, a member of the collective to help victims of influencers (AVI), in a debate organized on Sunday. For its part, Atlas Kinder has committed to placing the 134,000 euros received under sequestration. "I’m getting hagar (sic), smeared, humiliated (sic), for clicks (sic), I can’t accept it," Poupette Kenza reacted on Snapchat, after posting a photo of herself giving the finger.