Morocco villas hide illegal debt settlements and money transfers

Commercial debts contracted in Morocco were allegedly settled with real estate assets located in France and Spain. The Office of Exchange has intensified its investigations into these operations suspected of circumventing Moroccan regulations.

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According to Hespress, some creditors allegedly agreed to receive apartments, villas or other properties held abroad instead of the sums owed to them in Morocco. The schemes also reportedly included exchange rate differences and commissions related to money transfers outside authorized channels.

The properties concerned were allegedly registered in the names of relatives or acquaintances in order to conceal the identity of their true owners. This method reportedly complicated the work of controllers tasked with linking real estate assets to actual beneficiaries.

Villas hide the money trail

Investigators are now seeking to determine how these properties were financed and whether the funds used to purchase them legally left Morocco. They are notably verifying authorization requests filed with the Office of Exchange and information held by banks.

The investigations also cover the course of operations preceding the acquisition of the assets. The objective is to reconstruct the money trail and verify whether the properties were used to conceal undeclared transfers before being used to settle commercial debts.

Data exchanges with French and Spanish financial authorities allegedly made it possible to find the true identity of certain owners. Controllers can thus compare land registers, banking operations and transfers made from Morocco.

The businessmen concerned did not appear during the voluntary regularization operation of assets held abroad, which closed at the end of 2024. This campaign had made it possible to declare more than two billion dirhams distributed among financial assets, real estate and cash.

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The contracts examined were nonetheless presented to Morocco as simple cash settlements. In reality, creditors allegedly obtained guarantees allowing them to indirectly recover properties abroad, sometimes through family members or acquaintances.