Moroccan Authorities Arrest 20 in Harhoura Villa for Drug Use and Health Violations

According to information from the newspaper Al Akhbar, these individuals, numbering 20, all male, were surprised by a joint patrol of the local authorities and the royal gendarmerie services, in a villa located in Casino beach, where they were clandestinely consuming shisha (hookah).

Still according to the newspaper, on the orders of the Public Prosecutor’s Office, almost all of the arrested persons, with the exception of the tenant of the villa, were released after the gendarmerie elements had recorded the identity of each one. The tenant was placed in pre-trial detention and then brought before the King’s Prosecutor for "arranging a clandestine place for the consumption of shisha and drugs and non-compliance with the provisions of the state of health emergency".

Al Akhbar points out that the mixed brigades have multiplied the raids in the area since the beginning of the holy month of Ramadan following complaints from neighborhood residents reporting nighttime disturbances and incessant movements of people foreign to their neighborhood. In violation of the state of emergency in effect from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m., young people are migrating mainly from Rabat and Témara to rented villas serving as meeting places with sex, drug use and shisha, the same source also denounces. Two young men aged 27 and 19 were even arrested in the area for qualified theft with the use of weapons. They belong to a criminal gang whose other members are being sought, reveals the daily.