Morocco Probes $70 Million in Suspicious Foreign Transfers by Investors

Inspectors from the Exchange Office are examining bank transfers totaling 700 million dirhams, including 87 million dirhams representing unrepatriated profits, made from local bank accounts belonging to companies, in order to verify compliance with commercial practices and identify tax and customs irregularities. To this end, they have sent correspondence to the subjects and requested additional documents to previous declarations as part of the ongoing audit, report sources to Hespress.

Investigators are basing their work on suspicion indicators mentioned in reports transmitted by the Studies and Statistics Department of the Exchange Office concerning contradictions in declarations by Moroccan businessmen about the deterioration of their investment activities abroad, their declaration of chronic financial deficit, and their inability to generate profits.

The investigations by the Exchange Office controllers have established a list of companies suspected of illegally transferring funds abroad by exploiting legal channels, withholding profits and circumventing their repatriation to Morocco, the same sources specified. According to them, these profits were transferred to accounts located in secure tax havens, after manipulating accounting declarations concerning their real financial situation. The mentioned companies are linked to investment projects in the real estate, construction, public works, financial technology, and cybersecurity services sectors, they emphasized.

Investigators have discovered that businessmen have used "offshore" companies to make several bank transfers. Preliminary data from ongoing audits have indeed revealed suspicions of Moroccan investors’ involvement in manipulating financial transfers in collusion with foreign companies. Some offenders have resorted to declaring fictitious financial deficits in projects to conceal profits and avoid declaring them to exchange authorities, their goal being to escape the repatriation of these profits in accordance with legal provisions and regulations in force.

What do the current texts say? In accordance with the provisions of Article 169 of the general instructions for exchange operations, the Exchange Office requires Moroccan companies (legal entities) wishing to invest abroad to have at least three years of activity, and their accounts must be certified without reservation by an auditor, it is specified. The office also insists on the necessity of a link between the planned investment abroad and the company’s activity, which investment must aim to strengthen and develop this activity, and must not concern financial placement operations or real estate assets. The authorized amount for investment abroad, for each resident legal entity and for each calendar year, as stipulated in Article 169 of said instructions, is set at 200 million dirhams.