Hespress learned from informed sources that the monitoring services of the Exchange Office have opened extensive investigations into the risks of potential smuggling of large amounts of hard currency in conjunction with the approach of New Year's celebrations, as this period witnesses a sharp increase in the pace of travel and trips by Moroccans abroad, especially to Europe. The sources explained that the Exchange Gendarmerie has begun coordinating with the monitoring teams of the General Administration of Customs and Indirect Taxes and banks, with the aim of seizing undeclared currency amounts, in the context of covering financial obligations outside Morocco.
The same sources reported that reports received from the vigilance and risk analysis services at the Exchange Office sensed the growing risks of smuggling hard currency abroad during the New Year’s Eve period, particularly through false statements regarding personal travel allowances, set at 100,000 dirhams per year (instead of 45,000 dirhams previously), with the possibility of raising them by 30 percent of income tax within the limits of 300,000 dirhams, as well as through unspecified expenses related to medical treatments and school expenses abroad, stressing that exchange controllers requested accurate data from banks in order to track financial transfers of suspects, and the movement of accounts opened in hard currency within the Kingdom.
Hespress sources reported that the investigations being conducted by the Exchange Office inspectors targeted commercial operations carried out by companies operating in a number of industrial and commercial sectors, particularly textiles, clothing and household equipment, explaining that the audits focused on the documents declared by importers, and verifying the validity of import invoices received from exporters from abroad, subject to suspicions of “inflation”, in order to facilitate the transfer of additional sums of money through legal bank transfers from Morocco, confirming that the Exchange Police requested information from the banks regarding the details of the aforementioned transfers and the identity of their beneficiaries.
he exchange police are expected to resort to the penalties legally authorized to them when detecting violations of currency declarations and smuggling, while fines reach six times the value of the amounts subject to the violation, and prison sentences range from three months to five years in prison; while the exchange regulations emphasize the necessity of returning the financial liquidity created abroad and converting it into dirhams, in the context of contributing to the stability of the national foreign currency reserve, and maintaining the balance of trade with abroad.
Hespress sources revealed that the exchange office inspectors have moved to the maximum speed in auditing the transfers of branches of multinational groups in Morocco to their headquarters abroad; This is in coordination with the Transfer Price Control Service (prix de transfert) and Special Operations, affiliated with the Audit Operations and Appeals Follow-up Department at the General Directorate of Taxes, and the General Administration of Customs and Indirect Taxes, explaining that the audit operations aim to verify suspicions of irregularities in calculating the value of profit transfers to parent groups abroad, and tampering with the cost of operations completed between the two parties, which facilitated the transfer of significant amounts of hard currency abroad through legal channels.
Source :Hespress.