Victims Plan Protest as Morocco’s Largest Real Estate Scandal Case Stalls

The victims of the biggest real estate scandal Morocco has ever known are at the end of their patience. The collective acting on behalf of the victims intends to organize a sit-in on September 19 in the economic capital, starting at 11:30 a.m. (local time) in front of the Villa Zevaco, Le360 reports. This sit-in will be followed by a peaceful march towards the headquarters of the Casablanca-Anfa prefecture, it is specified.

The case had come to light in 2019. The Bab Darna real estate group, whose CEO is Mohammed El Ouardi, had marketed nearly a dozen fictitious real estate projects, all standards combined, between 2017 and 2018 without owning the slightest land where the buildings would be erected. In total, more than 1,000 reservists were defrauded. Among them, Moroccans living abroad (MREs). The scam generated more than 400 million dirhams.

The justice system was seized of the case. The police arrested several people: Mohamed El Ouardi, CEO of the group, his financial director, his commercial director, a salesman and an accountant, a notary. They are incarcerated. In February, the investigating judge at the Aïn Sebaâ correctional court declared himself incompetent.

Since then, "the file has been transferred to the criminal chamber of the court of appeal after the facts have been requalified as crimes. A investigating judge then took over the case. It is still under investigation," says Mourad Elajouti, a lawyer at the Casablanca bar, a member of the Bab Darna victims’ defense committee. Subsequently, the processing of the file has been delayed. According to the lawyer, this delay is explained by the health crisis related to Covid-19. He hopes that things will speed up after the resumption.