The Casablanca Court of Appeals Public Prosecutor’s Office ordered the arrest of 23 individuals on Friday, including President of Wydad (WAC) and member of Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) Said Naciri, and Eastern Regional Council President Abdenabi Bioui, dispatching them all to the Oukacha jail for drug trafficking, money laundering and abuse of power. Two other suspects are out on bail.
Naciri and Bioui are suspected of involvement in the case of the “Malian Drug Baron,” a.k.a. Hadj Ahmed Ben Ibrahim, also known as “The Escobar of the Sahara.”
A veritable plethora of defense lawyers attended the hearings to assist the twenty-five suspects who were brought before the public prosecutor’s office at the Casablanca Court of Appeals on Thursday by the Judicial Police (BNPJ).
The majority of these suspects are politicians and sports officials, as well as policemen, gendarmes, notaries, and a fashion designer.
Beside Naciri and Bioui, Abderrahim Bioui, Belkacem Mir, Fouad El Yazidi, Saïd Tanji, Naoufal Hmami, Hamid Oumya, Mohamed Maazouzi, Salima Belhachmi, Amine Jadid, Taieb Tinyali, Slimane Kaddouri, Nasr-Eddine Benabid, Khalid Seddas, M’barek El Baroudi, Abderrahmane Dkhissi, Taoufik Benayad, Hicham Elouafi, Abdelali Ghomari, Dalila Bazwi, Rachid Hammou, Boufelja Benkassou, El Hassan Mani, and Larbi Taibi are all involved of this affair.
This scandal of behemoth proportions demonstrates the equality of all citizens before the law, the efficiency of security services, and the swiftness with which high-level officials of all ranks are prosecuted.
A temporary committee will be formed to manage Wydad over the coming period in the absence of its President, Naciri, who is also suspended from his PAM membership.
WAC officials had been preparing for this eventuality for some time. In addition, as a measure of “damage control,” there is an ad hoc meeting planned to elect a new president.
The affair erupted in August, following the Jeune Afrique magazine article, which reported links between the accused – although they were not mentioned by name – and a drug baron nicknamed “The Malian” / “Escobar of the Sahara,” whose real name–as previously mentioned–is El Hadj Ahmed Ben Ibrahim.
“The Malian” was arrested at Casablanca airport in 2019 and was sentenced to 10 years-plus at the El Jadida prison (70 kilometers south of Casablanca).
The Malian is one of leading drug barons running international drug trafficking. Several media reports concur that Hadj Ahmed Ben Ibrahim was a simple camel shepherd before he was propelled into organized crime and drug trafficking networks in the Sahel and the Sahara.
The drug lord made connections in Latin America and West Africa and took control of the drug chain of production and distribution, spanning Bolivia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Mali, Niger…
The Escobar of the desert was also implicated in money laundering as he was the owner of real estates and properties across all the territories where he was operating.