Plastic Surgeon’s Trial Expands: Family Members Face Fraud Allegations in Casablanca Clinic Case

Things are getting complicated for the brother of Dr. Hassan Tazi, director of the Chifaa clinic, and the surgeon’s wife. At the bar, an employee of the clinic’s accounting department, who is in pre-trial detention, accused these relatives of the surgeon on Thursday of overcharging, thus confirming the information relating to the clinic, contained in a report from the CNSS, reports the Arabic-language daily Assabah. She admits to having invoiced on their orders surgical procedures and care services at rates much higher than those set by the Fund.

These confessions were obtained after the defendant was confronted by the president of the collegiate body with the statements of the witnesses recorded in the investigating judge’s report, the recordings of communications and the photos of former patients of the clinic used to raise funds, but also with the presentation of the minutes of the wife’s email records and the transcription of her orders to overcharge the services provided to patients, which were paid for by donors.

The attempted extortion of funds of which the daughter of the head of government was a victim was also mentioned. An association activist who is also in pre-trial detention is the intermediary in this case. She had requested the help of the social services of the Akwa Group to cover the cost of a child’s operation. After the daughter of Aziz Akhannouch paid half of the child’s care bill, the association activist exposed the same case to other potential donors to collect more donations. She was very close to the wife of the main defendant, who even offered to increase her commission from 10% to 20% of the value of the collected donations.

Dr Tazi, his brother, his wife and five other people are separately accused of human trafficking, exploitation of the vulnerability of people for commercial purposes, fraud against benefactors acting in good faith, falsification of treatment invoices and medical records, exploitation of minors suffering from chronic illness, forgery and use of forgery and the constitution of a criminal gang. The criminal chamber of the court of first instance of the court of appeal in Casablanca had rejected on April 13 their request for provisional release.