Moroccan Gendarmerie Arrests Prominent Businessman in Major Drug Trafficking Bust

The special unit in charge of judicial investigations under the General Staff of the Royal Gendarmerie in Rabat arrested, on Tuesday, May 19, the businessman suspected of being behind this attempted export of a significant quantity of drugs. The truck driver transporting the cargo did not resist the relentless interrogations aimed at getting him to spill the beans. He thus designated the businessman as the main person responsible in this case.

The man was arrested in Kénitra where he runs a company specializing in the production of paper and cardboard, in the Bir Rami industrial zone. And as one might expect, "he formally denied any connection with this case," despite the accusations of the truck driver who transported the cargo. In addition, the meticulous search of the company’s offices did not reveal the presence of any materials related to drug trafficking. Yet the driver persists and signs that "the 6.3 tons of chira seized in El Guerguerate were packaged and loaded onto the premises of the paper and cardboard company located in Kénitra," reports Al Massae.

But the investigators, even if they found nothing in the company’s premises, noticed that "the disproportionate wealth of this industrialist is not really proportional to his activity." And that’s not all. Another clue strongly attracted the suspicions of the Royal Gendarmerie investigators. It is the exorbitant number of cameras that "cover the company, but are only sporadically functional." Similarly, "a farm belonging to the arrested businessman was combed through, but nothing to prove the man’s direct involvement in drug trafficking. It took the arrest of the other members involved in this case to see more clearly," the same source specifies.