Smartphone Smuggling Ring Uncovered at Melilla-Morocco Border

Hundreds of luxury smartphones arrive in Nador and several other cities of the kingdom each week from Melilla. "These devices, transported by individuals who benefit from the relaxation of control at the border post, are then resold on the parallel market in the Moroccan market," informs Assabah, specifying that "this activity is detrimental to the Moroccan economy and finances organized crime by funding it".

"Behind the peaceful and routine aspect of the border crossing between Melilla and Bni Nsar, since the eradication of the smuggling phenomenon, money laundering networks are now active," notes the daily, adding that this traffic of luxury smartphones is the work of a Moroccan national established in Melilla and his accomplices in Morocco who recover these phones and deliver them to the resellers established in Nador and in certain major cities of the kingdom.

According to the daily, it "is not just a mundane activity of smuggling goods, but a means of money laundering from drug trafficking, generating substantial sums each week." And to insist: "This is not just smuggling that deprives the state of tax revenues, duties and taxes, but the pivot of a money laundering network from international drug trafficking."