Moroccan Official Arrested for Passport Bribery Scheme in Casablanca

The head of the passport service in the prefecture of Sidi Bernoussi paid the price for his misconduct. By demanding a bribe of 500 dirhams from a woman to speed up the procedure for issuing her passport, he was far from imagining that he would face the police and the justice system.

The facts. A woman went to the caïd’s office to ask him to speed up the procedure for issuing her passport. In turn, he demanded a sum of 1,000 dirhams from the lady, finally reduced to 500 dirhams, after negotiations. Faced with this attempted corruption, the lady decided to file a complaint through the anti-corruption hotline set up by the Attorney General’s Office. This service directed her to the public prosecutor who immediately instructed the judicial police of the Wilaya of the Casablanca security.

This is how the judicial police investigators had the idea of trapping the caïd. In this sense, they asked the plaintiff to hand over the sum of 500 dirhams to the head of the passport service, after scanning the serial numbers of the bills, reports Assabah. The strategy proved successful: the caïd was caught red-handed in an act of corruption. After being taken into custody, he was brought before the Attorney General of the Court of Appeal of Casablanca.

Pending a more thorough investigation, the caïd was detained in the Oukacha prison.