Morocco Probes Tourist Spending Discrepancies After European Alerts

Based on these European alerts, the Foreign Exchange Office has conducted in-depth investigations, which have allowed it to identify discrepancies between the amounts declared by Moroccan tourists at the borders, particularly at the Mohammed V airports in Casablanca and Marrakech-Ménara, and the actual expenses incurred in Spain and France for the purchase of jewelry, luxury watches and valuable accessories.

Thanks to the information provided by the financial control authorities in Spain and France, the Foreign Exchange Office controllers have succeeded in identifying several suspects involved in the illegal transfer of funds from Morocco abroad, including bank transfers, property transfer operations and asset disposals.

In recent years, the Foreign Exchange Office has granted facilities regarding travel allowances, which have increased from 45,000 dirhams to 100,000 dirhams, whether for a tourism trip, to perform the Umrah and Hajj, or for medical care. The ceiling amount for annual transfers for private investments abroad has also increased to 200 million dirhams and to one million dirhams for allocations to startups operating in the e-commerce sector.