Moroccan Bank Executive Faces Trial for Massive Embezzlement Scheme

Incarcerated in the local prison of Témara since May 2024, Daniel Ziouziou, regional director of the Moroccan Union of Banks (UMB) of Tanger-Tétouan-Al Hoceïma, is being prosecuted for "forming a network of embezzlement of public funds, attack on automated data processing systems and falsification of banking documents for the purpose of embezzlement". According to a source close to the case, his last hearing as part of the detailed interrogation before the investigating judge of the fifth chamber in charge of financial crimes at the Rabat Court of Appeal was held last Monday, reports H24info. The director of the UMB agency in Tétouan, Mourad Habsaya, also involved in the case, was also questioned. The magistrate will have to hear the witnesses and the victims, before proceeding to a confrontation between the parties to the case. After that, Ziouziou’s trial should be scheduled.

This manager took advantage of his position to divert funds from bank accounts of clients - companies, businessmen, civil servant associations, or individuals - from his agency. His accomplice, his cashier and he would have embezzled millions of dirhams from the bank belonging to the heirs of Princes Moulay Abdellah and Moulay Ali as well as some Swiss and American shareholders. According to the first testimonies collected from the victims, Daniel Ziouzio, who is also one of the administrators of the football club Moghreb de Tétouan in difficulty since last year, took both simple deposits of a few thousand dirhams and accounts full of hundreds of millions. The case came to light after several clients went to this bank branch located on Mohammed V Avenue on May 23 to check the status of their deposits with this bank. Some were surprised to find that their savings had evaporated, while others found that part of their deposits had been lost.

The testimonies of the victims indicate that the embezzlements began as early as 2020. Some clients claim to have lost deposits of more than one million dirhams. A company whose associate is the royal advisor Omar Azziman is among the victims. He inherited this company in 2017 after the death of his mother, Setti Aïn Melloul. According to testimonies, the company’s account at UMB contained 340,000 DH, but now only 230 DH remain. The victims only want to recover their savings. According to a source close to the investigation, it will be up to the Collective Deposit Guarantee Fund (FCGD), under Bank Al-Maghrib (BAM), and administered by the Moroccan Society for the Management of Bank Deposit Guarantee Funds (SGFG) to compensate the depositors in case UMB is unable to return the deposits and other embezzled funds, the amount of which is estimated at "around 1 billion dirhams".