Moroccan Expat Caught in Million-Dollar Money Laundering Scheme from Pacific Tax Haven

It all started with the transfer of one million dollars (about 10 million dirhams) from a bank located on the island of Nauru, a country classified as "high risk", to the benefit of an MRE, a customer of a national banking institution. The origin of the money prompted the bank manager in Morocco to launch an investigation into the operation. The investigation revealed that the beneficiary is the owner of a travel agency in Morocco and plans to invest the money received in a tourism project, reports Assabah. A project that he will implement with a foreign partner in one of the cities on the Mediterranean coast.

The bank noted that the Moroccan potential investor had indeed filed a file with the bank, with a SWIFT message, as well as documents relating to the tourism project and even stated that this one million dollar transfer would be followed by other operations. But this is not enough to reassure the bank official in charge of processing this file. He declared the transaction to the National Financial Intelligence Authority (ANRF), as required by the law in force. The latter, which conducted investigations, discovers that there is no clear commercial or economic relationship between the beneficiary and the sender of the transfer. The latter is also linked to a company already involved in a money laundering scandal in the real estate sector in Morocco. The hypothesis of money laundering therefore seems confirmed.