
Corruption Scandal: Officials Exposed in Moroccan Illegal Well-Drilling Network
Elected officials and government agents in the Casablanca-Settat region are allegedly involved in a network of illegal well drilling.

Elected officials and government agents in the Casablanca-Settat region are allegedly involved in a network of illegal well drilling.

Following the receipt of information concerning the fraudulent use of "student" identities in money laundering operations through real estate investments in a legal form, the National Financial Intelligence Authority (ANRF) is investigating the compliance of unusual financial transfers between Moroccan students abroad, particularly in France and Canada, and managers of real estate associations located mainly in the Rabat-Casablanca axis, and the origin of these operations.

Due to their complicity with real estate developers, civil servants working for the urban planning services of several prefectures under the regions of Casablanca-Settat, Marrakech-Safi and Rabat-Salé-Kénitra are in the sights of the central administration services of the Ministry of the Interior. They are conducting administrative investigations.

Fraud networks involving property owners, real estate developers, and banking officials are the focus of control services under the General Directorate of Taxes (DGI). They are conducting in-depth investigations, which have detected several cases of tax evasion.

Inspectors from the National Financial Intelligence Authority (ANRF) are investigating small and medium-sized companies based between Casablanca and Tangier, suspected of fictitious declarations and money laundering.

The family of Omar, the 3-year-old child who died crushed under a garbage truck in Paris, has joined the civil party. They hope that the investigation, now led by the judicial processing service of accidents at the Paris police headquarters under the direction of an investigating judge, will shed light on this case.

The General Inspection of Territorial Administration of the Ministry of the Interior, in coordination with the Inspection of the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and Housing, are conducting in-depth investigations into alleged fraudulent maneuvers related to building permit applications filed with the one-stop shops of local authorities by real estate developers.

Human rights organizations accuse the United Kingdom of having outsourced its justice system to Morocco by transmitting the investigation file of Lee Brahim Murray-Lamrani, the MMA fighter "Lightening" Lee Murray, presented as the mastermind behind the robbery of the Securitas depot located in the southeast of England that occurred on the night of February 21, 2006 in Tonbridge, Kent, which facilitated his conviction to 25 years in prison.

The house of a Moroccan living in Spain was the target of a burglary in Driouch, where unknown individuals stole the entire contents of the premises.

The police have managed to arrest a second suspect in the "narco-assassination" of Nordine, a 49-year-old father shot dead at the foot of his building in Anderlecht on June 5th.

In Morocco, the number of small businesses that have gone bankrupt has increased considerably in three years. This is revealed by a new national study by the Moroccan Instance of Very Small Enterprises (IMPE) on the situation of VSEs.

Some 500 laptops stolen from the Santa Coloma de Gramenet high school in Catalonia would have been located in Morocco where they were sold at half price.