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A cocaine trafficker who was Europe’s most sought-after has been arrested in Morocco. The arrest goes against the trend of Morocco being a safe haven to gangsters.
Younes El-Ballouti (also known as El Magico) was arrested by police on 29 September in a shisha bar in Tangier and brought to Casablanca’s Ain Sebaa Prison.
Since years, he’s been the fugitive of the Mocro Maffia. The Dutch-Moroccan group is accused of flooding Europe with cocaine and leaving a trail behind of shootings that stretches from Amsterdam to Antwerp up to the Costa del Sol.
The timing of his arrest is remarkable. His detention comes as Dubai – once the ultimate bolt hole for Europe’s crime lords – has finally started clamping down on its mafia tenants.
READ MORE Spain’s underworld of cocaine is roiled by spider-men, narcosubmarines and arrests.
Last month, Scottish gangland figures Ross McGill Steven Lyons Stephen Jamieson Steven Larwood, were arrested during coordinated raids conducted in Dubai.
Early this year, the United Arab Emirates returned to Dublin a senior Kinahan lieutenant and Irish mobster Sean McGovern.
Kinahans are still at liberty, but new laws on money laundering have put pressure on the family’s operations.
Faysal EB, a 36-year old trafficker who was convicted in 2020 for importing 1.3 tons of cocaine, is now facing extradition back to Belgium.
In 2019, he was arrested for the first time in Niel near Antwerp while supervising unloading a shipment.
READ MORENarcos from the Costa del Sol, desperate to escape capture, dump dozens and dozens of canisters of petrol into the sea in a high-speed pursuit near Marbella
Morocco is becoming the new refuge of mafia figures from a certain background, with Dubai moving.
Tangier and Casablanca are now home to dozens of Moroccans who fled Europe. The constitution of the country, which prohibits extradition, protects them.
Spain’s annual report from the Spanish Public Prosecutor’s Office for 2024 has warned that Morocco has become a ‘key regrouping point’ for the Mocro Maffia and other networks after Dubai lost its status as a sanctuary, with investigators across Europe left frustrated by their inability to secure extraditions across the Strait.
The loophole, according to investigators has made Morocco one of last refuges for human traffickers.
The report alleges that Dutch-Belgian feuds between the Mocro Maffia have now spilled over onto Spanish soil. Protected witnesses were assassinated in a bid to send a warning message to others.
Karim Bouyakhrichan disappeared after his arrest in Marbella and bail in January 2024.
It is believed that he has fled to Morocco. Those responsible for the murder of two Guardia Civils in Barbate, February 2024, also fled to Morocco.
READ MORE Spanish police arrest narcos who dump drugs in the Strait of Gibraltar, and seize seven tonnes
Karim El-Baqqali, the pilot that rammed into the police boat was later arrested, with Moroccan assistance.
However he was not extradited to Spain – he ‘willingly’ handed himself over to Spanish authorities.
El Ballouti’s arrest was a complete surprise, given his complicated past.
READ MORE How the Portuguese Navy foiled a high seas narcojacking of a container ship traveling notorious cocaine highway towards Malaga
The Moroccan authorities did nothing when he was wanted by Interpol for international drug trafficking and also in Belgium and the Netherlands.
We will have to wait and see if his arrest is a sign of a new dawning in international law.
Moroccan media outlet Le Desk, reports that he was only arrested for passport fraud committed inside Morocco – not his cocaine empire in Europe.
El Ballouti faces charges only in the United States, not internationally.
READ MOREThe narcos of Cadiz torture a mule and force him to undergo a gruesome laxative ordeal while they wait for the missing drugs
According to the Spanish Public Prosecutor’s annual report, the clan has become one of the world’s most powerful criminal organizations, funneling cocaine through Rotterdam and Antwerp while using southern Spain as a laundering and logistical hub.
This article describes how Moroccan-origin drug networks continue driving smuggling to Cadiz, Malaga, and Almeria. Spanish local prosecutors have been handling a surge of cases connected to the Mocro Maffia.
It warns: Corruption, paramilitary terrorism and the existence safe havens in the Strait of Malacca have created an ecosystem of criminals that directly affects the lives of people on the southern coastline.
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