Moroccan Real Estate Developer Faces Trial for Alleged Fraud Against Expatriates

It all started with complaints filed by members of the housing association, Moroccans residing abroad, with the Moroccan consular services in their countries of residence against a major real estate developer. They accuse him of having carried out abusive seizures of 47 properties belonging to them, of having falsified the building plan, including the land registry number, and of having defrauded them, reports Hespress. In his complaint, the president of the association raised the irregularity of the seizure procedures concerning a previous real estate transaction between the two parties in 2017.

According to him, the defendant had tried to evade a debt release document that he had signed before a notary in Casablanca, when he had received, through a company, 14 villa plots in the upscale Californie district, as part of a real estate project in which he had participated. The developer "had then chosen to finalize the purchase in order to resell it through a company, due to the financial value of the transaction and the high tax obligations associated with it," specifies the same source. Among the plaintiffs, MREs who turned to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, in order to put pressure on the major real estate developer.

For a year, the defendant has been banned from traveling. As he was about to leave Moroccan territory through Mohammed V International Airport in Casablanca, he was apprehended. The judge ordered the examination of his file within 15 days, in order to summon him to appear. The court granted the defendant’s lawyer a deadline to prepare his defense and respond to the important documents and evidence presented by the plaintiff regarding the "falsification of the project plan".