According to a recent official survey, 72% of citizens recognize that there is corruption in Morocco. Given public opinion, cases of fraud within the ruling class are less likely to be reported in the press. The testimony of Malian drug trafficker Ahmed Ben Brahim, nicknamed Pablo Escobar of the Sahara, to police in a Casablanca prison, who has accused former Moroccan accomplices and front men of confiscating his assets, has led to the arrest of a total of 25 suspects, one of the largest Anti-corruption operations in the Maghreb country. Local media report that among those arrested are two senior officials of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), part of the current coalition government and linked to construction and public works and the world of football, as well as agents of the security forces, civil servants and Lawyers. They face a prison sentence of up to 20 years.
El Escobar del Sáhara, also known as El Maliense, was arrested at Casablanca airport in 2019 after arriving from Mauritania, where he had been imprisoned for four years on an Interpol arrest warrant for drug trafficking. According to the Paris-based pan-African weekly Jeune Afrique, a Moroccan court sentenced him to 10 years in prison for being responsible for a multinational drug smuggling scheme. Ben Brahim was accused of leading a network dedicated to distributing Moroccan hashish resin in West Africa and transporting cocaine supplies from Latin America to North African ports with a final destination in Europe.
The drug lord's fortune was estimated at tens of millions of euros, with properties in Brazil, Bolivia and Russia as well as on Spain's Costa del Sol. His real estate assets stretched from the tourist town of Saidia on Morocco's Mediterranean coast, closest to Algeria, to Casablanca. A magnificent villa with large gardens and a luxury apartment, both in the heart of the country's economic capital, were soon occupied by two of his supposedly most prominent partners. The first by Said Naciri, president of the Wydad football club in Casablanca, and the second by Abdeni Biui, president of the Eastern Regional Council of Morocco (of which Oujda is the capital) and owner of a public construction company. They have been behind bars since the end of December. Both are prominent members of the PAM.
El Maliense explained in prison to agents of the Moroccan FBI's Central Division of Forensic Investigations that his former partners had attacked him after purchasing several trucks from him. When police intercepted the vehicles loaded with 40 tonnes of cannabis resin, they ensured that the papers were still in Ben Brahim's name and had not been transferred to a new owner.
Born in 1976 in the town of Kidal, the Tuareg capital of Mali, Saharan Escobar was destined for a life as a shepherd until he happened to meet a French driver whom he helped when his car crashed. Right in the middle of the Paris-Dakar Rally, his life took a happy turn. With the help of the grateful pilot, young Ben Ibrahim soon devoted himself to importing used vehicles from Europe and trading gold. Later his business focused on drugs.
It was his constant travels across the region, encountering tribes and dialects, that made him an expert navigator through the steppes and sandy beaches of the Sahel and the Sahara, a favorable space for armed groups, jihadist militias and mafias of all kinds. traffic . Powerful men like Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of the Libyan dictator until 2011, entrusted him with the most sensitive transport missions. His mother, who was born in Oujda, also opened the doors to the Maghreb for him.
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The president of the Wydad football club, Said Naciri, in 2022 in Casablanca.Sebastian Frej/MB Media (Getty Images)
In this Moroccan city on the border with Algeria, he came into contact with Biaui, who, according to the Moroccan press, had served a prison sentence for robbery in France and for drug trafficking in Spain before building an empire in the construction and construction trades, becoming a deputy and member the Parliament's Infrastructure Commission. The two joined forces to transport hashish from northern Morocco to West Africa. During his travels through Zagora (South) to the Sahara, he met Said Naciri, the regional political boss, who also sold Saharan belongings of Pablo Escobar and later transferred large amounts to his own account.
In Morocco, the fear of speaking openly about corruption seems to have almost disappeared. About three quarters of citizens are aware that fraudulent practices are widespread. This emerges from the survey presented in December by the so-called National Authority for Probity, Prevention and Combating Corruption, an official body. In recent years, Morocco has fallen five points on Transparency International's list, falling 21 places to 94th in 2022 among 180 states surveyed.
In a new scandal uncovered by the Moroccan press this month, Aziz el Badrawi, who headed Raja, the other major club in Casablanca, between 2022 and 2023, was arrested and accused of collecting commissions when contracting out public services. The world of football is being questioned in Morocco as it prepares to organize the 2030 Africa Cup of Nations and World Cup alongside Spain and Portugal.
In addition to El Badraui, owner of a municipal waste collection company, Mohamed Karimin, former deputy and former mayor Buznika, a member of the Istiqlal party, which is also part of Prime Minister Aziz's coalition government, was also taken into preventive detention. Achanuch. He is considered one of the most influential politicians in the greater Rabat area.
The Moroccan branch of Transparency International finds it “very worrying” that 29 members of parliament have been prosecuted for corruption in the last five years. According to the digital information portal Le 360, at least twenty of the 395 members of the House of Representatives (lower house) are under judicial investigation. Half a dozen of them are already in prison.
In a twist that brought more attention to the case, famous Moroccan singer Latifa Raafat admitted to the judge that she had been married to the Malian drug lord for “four months and ten days” but denied knowledge of the illegal activities have her husband. The housekeeper who looked after the couple at the time traveled from Spain, where she currently works, to confirm her former employer's statement.
Moroccan Justice Minister Abdelatif Uahbi during a debate in Rabat organized by the MAP news agency. Maria Traspaderne (EFE)
Moroccan weekly Tel Quel has described the case of Saharan Pablo Escobar as one of the biggest scandals in the history of the Sherifian kingdom, mixing “drug trafficking, politics and economics.” The young YouTuber Reda Tauyni, who has almost 200,000 subscribers on his channel, was sentenced on Thursday by a court in Agadir (southwest) to two years in prison for defaming Justice Minister Abdelatif Uahbi, the supreme leader of the Authenticity and Modernity Party. Tauyni called for his resignation in a video broadcast on the social network, accusing him of introducing those accused of drug trafficking into politics.
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