Their detention comes as other Moroccan officials have recently been arrested in a corruption and drug trafficking scandal, including the boss of Casablanca’s other major football club, Wydad. An investigating judge at the Casablanca Court of Appeal on Friday ordered the arrest of Aziz El Badraoui, president of Raja between 2022 and 2023, parliamentarian Mohamed Karimine and a retired engineer, questioned this week.
They are suspected of “wastefulness of public funds”, “embezzlement” and “use of forgery”, a judicial source who requested anonymity told AFP. The investigation concerns waste collection contracts linking a company owned by Mr. El Badraoui to the commune of Bouznika (south of Rabat), headed by Mr. Karimine (Istiqlal party, government coalition).
Two other elected officials have been in detention since December 22, suspected of having played a key role in the vast network of a Malian drug lord, Ahmed Ben Brahim, nicknamed the “Pablo Escobar of the Sahara”. Saïd Naciri, president of the Prefectural Council of Casablanca (west) and boss of Wydad Casablanca, and Abdennabi Biioui, president of the Oriental Regional Council (east) must be heard again next week by an investigating judge.
This investigation involves 25 people, 20 of whom were incarcerated. The Moroccan branch of the organization Transparency International warned at the end of January of “systemic and endemic” corruption in the country, threatening its “social, economic and political stability”. Morocco is in 97th position out of 180 countries in the 2023 ranking of Transparency International’s corruption perception index, losing three places compared to the previous year and 24 in five years.