Morocco locates farm for international cocaine trafficking

CASABLANCA - Morocco’s security forces located a farm suspected of serving as a rear base to facilitate the storage and trafficking of cocaine near the southern city of Boujdour as part of the ongoing investigation into a transnational criminal network of international cocaine trafficking.

The Central Bureau of Judicial Investigations (BCIJ) said that the farm was located after interrogating one of the Colombian nationals questioned as part of the criminal network,

The search culminated in the seizure of the property, equipment and materials in relation to the international cocaine trafficking routes, said BCIJ.

The investigations revealed that the Columbian suspect had followed training sessions in aviation, and that he entered illegally in Morocco in order to participate in the setting up of a clandestine track of landing in the vicinity of Dakhla, to ensure the take-off and landing of the planes that the criminal network planned to use in cocaine trafficking operations from Latin America to Europe, transiting through Morocco, the statement said.

The BCIJ continues its search operations in the vicinity of Dakhla in order to detect and locate the runways that the members of this criminal network wanted to use as the runway of the aircraft in the area.

Moroccan authorities seized nine days ago more than a tonne of cocaine and detained 17 individuals suspected of smuggling the narcotic from South America to Europe.

The drug is mostly sent from Central America via West African countries and more recently through North Africa, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

In recent years, Moroccan authorities have reported increasing cocaine seizures, including a record 2.5-tonne haul in October last year.