Moroccans in Spain Pay Hundreds for Visa Appointments Amid Consulate Backlog

According to El Español, some Moroccans residing in Spain have had to pay 300 euros to this network to get an appointment at the consulate. The situation is particularly critical at the Spanish Consulate General in Casablanca where you have to wait more than a year to get an appointment. Here, Moroccans residing in Spain have paid up to 1,200 euros to this network to get an appointment.

Samira, 43, who has lived in Madrid for 25 years, has been stranded in Casablanca since the closure of land borders and airspace for the Covid-19 health crisis. She had gone to the kingdom to visit her sick father, who has since died. The Moroccan residing in Spain is still waiting for an appointment to obtain a visa. "The problem is that it is impossible to make an appointment in Morocco... She has already paid 700 euros and knows nothing about the people she gave the money to," Pilar, a friend and neighbor of Samira in Spain, explains to the Spanish media.

The forty-year-old has been trying since February 2023 to get an appointment at the Spanish consulate in Casablanca. Without success. A situation that is causing her enormous prejudice in Spain. The Moroccan residing in Spain continues to pay her rent in Madrid and has lost benefits on her health card because she could not honor her appointments at the health center. Lina (pseudonym), a Spanish woman of Moroccan origin, is experiencing the same situation. She is stranded in Morocco and has been trying in vain for a year to get an appointment at the Casablanca consulate.

The fraudulent appointment selling network is maintained by "people close to the consulate, they even operate in a cafe in the region," says a Spanish lawyer residing in Morocco, who says he has been denouncing these irregularities to the Spanish authorities for years. But the phenomenon is not observed in all consulates. "In Rabat, the appointment is free, it is not normal to ask for a sum of money for a free service," adds the lawyer. In April 2023, Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita had warned visa intermediaries. But the problem persists.