Moroccan Soldiers Implicated in Major Drug Trafficking Ring

The "Escobar of the Desert" case, which led to the arrest of the president of the Oriental region, Abdenbi Bioui, and Saïd Naciri, president of Wydad Casablanca, has not finished revealing all its secrets. Wiretaps of calls intercepted by the BNPJ, involving individuals among the twenty or so defendants tried before the criminal chamber near the Casablanca Court of Appeal, reveal that Moroccan soldiers would be accomplices of the alleged network of Abdenbi Bioui, suspected of having transported 200 tons of cannabis from Morocco to Algeria, through the eastern border until October, a few days before the start of the arrests, reports Médias24.

The hearings of the "heads of the network" have not yet been effective, but the "small hands" have already been heard. From their hearings before the criminal chamber of Casablanca, complicity at the Moroccan-Algerian borders emerges. "I am just a small farmer. I have nothing to do with this story. You are mistaken about the person. The Benaouda are many in my douar and in my region," says a certain A.B., accused of having "facilitated the illegal exit of Moroccans from the national territory", "corruption" and "participation in drug trafficking." He would have joined the network thanks to a retired soldier named Abderrazak who would have communicated the numbers of his former colleagues stationed at the borders.

The alleged trafficker tries to convince the judge that the police had arrested a namesake, but the BNPJ wiretaps confound him. In his conversations with his accomplices, he mentioned points 88 and 90, the network’s preferred crossing points into Algeria. According to his conversations, the modus operandi of the network is to contact the soldier on duty for each operation so that he can divert the surveillance camera and facilitate the transit of the cannabis. The drug was often divided into ten batches and transported at night in several stages and through different crossing points. Once the operation was successful, the soldier in charge of diverting the camera received 36,000 dirhams for each bale, while the smugglers, usually small farmers, received 10,000 dirhams.

The hearings will continue before the criminal chamber of Casablanca on Friday, February 21, 2025.