Moroccan Tycoons Under Scrutiny: Foreign Exchange Office Probes Illicit Cash Flows to Europe

Moroccan businessmen are in the sights of the Foreign Exchange Office. They would be involved in operations to settle debts from local commercial transactions carried out abroad, escaping the regulatory channels. The investigators were able to identify asset disposals and bank transfers made by the persons concerned as well as by members of their families. These operations involved significant amounts in euros and were the subject of suspicious reports in both countries, according to well-informed sources at Hespress.

A businessman based in the economic capital and active in the livestock and butchery sector is in the sights of the inspectors of the Foreign Exchange Office. They discovered that he received a significant portion of the proceeds from the sale of a plot of land located in a municipality under the province of Nouaceur and that his wife recovered the cash in France, before distributing the sums to several accounts belonging to relatives, pending their transfer to another destination, according to the same sources.

Another target: a real estate developer officially residing in Casablanca, owner of real estate projects in Salé and Kelaat Sraghna, who sold two companies, with their real estate assets, to other people. "A significant portion of the transaction was cashed in Spain, where his wife and children have had residence permits since 2021," the same sources report.

The controllers of the Foreign Exchange Office discovered that a significant portion of the amounts from these disposals was transferred abroad outside the channels in accordance with the provisions of the exchange legislation. The investigations reveal that the buyers have undeclared assets abroad, including bank accounts and real estate registered in their name or in the name of their spouses and children, and that these assets have not been declared as part of the spontaneous regularization operation of assets and property held abroad, which was definitively closed on December 31 last.