Major French Cannabis Trafficker Arrested in Dubai, Faces Extradition

End of the run for the number one target of the Central Office for Narcotics: Moufide Bouchibi alias "Mouf". The 41-year-old man was arrested in Dubai on Sunday, March 21 in the evening and should be quickly extradited to Paris, reports RTL. For more than 20 years, the French authorities had been trying to arrest him. Without success.

While he was on the run in Morocco in 2012, the investigators tried to arrest him. They failed. The fugitive had time to disappear and reappear in Algeria. In 2019, same scenario. This time, he was in Tunisia. He then settled in Dubai where he was hiding part of his money.

The quadragenarian is a well-known man in the drug world. A drug baron from Alsace put him on the right track when he was 20 years old. "Mouf" is also known to the justice system: he has been incarcerated several times. He is a habitual escapee. He had tons and tons of cannabis shipped by go-fast from Morocco to France via Spain. The market value of this traffic would be estimated at 70 million euros per year.

To launder the "dirty money", "Mouf" invests in real estate under the names of his relatives. His ambition to diversify into cocaine through the South American networks seems doomed to fail. He was arrested in Dubai and will be extradited to France. During his flight, the French justice had sentenced him to 20 years in prison.