Major Drug Money Laundering Network Dismantled, Funneled €90 Million Annually to Morocco

It took several months of investigation and long-term cooperation between all the specialized sections across the country for this network to be dismantled in early November. According to the facts, heavy goods vehicles criss-crossed France to collect money generated by drug traffickers, reports Franceinfo. This money is then sent to Morocco via Spain. According to the French gendarmerie, this "vast network was laundering around 90 million euros per year".

In total, the research sections of Lyon, Chambéry, Nîmes and Montpellier, supported by a Europol unit specialized in tracking money laundering, arrested 18 people and seized 4 million in criminal assets (cash, apartments, trucks, cars, bank accounts), it detailed in a press release. The investigating judge decided to remand 14 of them in custody. The other four were placed under judicial supervision.

According to the investigators, the network reinvested the 90 million euros in real estate in Morocco. During the searches, they also seized 37 kilos of cannabis, 5 kilos of cocaine, two shotguns and an automatic pistol. 2018 marked the beginning of this case, dubbed "Cash Collect" by the investigators. The Lyon gendarmes discovered "that a fleet of about fifteen trucks registered in Morocco was used for the transport of goods but also of dirty money from known drug traffickers".

"The money was in supermarket bags, well packaged in bundles with an account book in the driver’s cab, without hiding," explains Colonel Laurent Lesaffre, commander of the Lyon SR. "While the money handover generally took place in ten minutes, some trucks sometimes made 24-hour stops at the collection sites, which is surprising for someone transporting goods," notes the colonel, adding that the investigators arrested, in September 2019 at the Boulou toll booth, a driver with "more than two million euros in cash in bags in his trunk".