Tax amnesty: arrest of an alleged fraudster in Casablanca

The anti-gang brigade, which reports to the Casablanca police headquarters, has just got its hands on a scammer who has just been released from prison.

The man did not wait long to resume his criminal activities and, according to Assaba of this Thursday, January 9, it comes at the right time, because its victims are affected by the tax regularization operation, which ended on December 31.

In fact, explains the daily, the alleged crook made his victims understand that he was “good.”introduced» in the workings of the tax administration, which he knew “high-ranking people» and could therefore, as a result, “intervene to resolve all kinds of tax-related disputes».

Following his arrest, he was “subjected to rigorous interrogation throughout the day of this Wednesday, January 8, 2025“, noted Assaba.

The investigators wanted to know more about his victims, especially since this crook was not his first attempt and had, in fact, already been arrested during the period of the Covid-19 pandemic. , again for acts of fraud.

During this period, he falsified documents relating to shanty town resettlement projects, which he offered to his victims by promising to give them plots of land, which were in fact purely fictitious.

The individual, caught red-handed, was arrested and sentenced to three and a half years in prison.

Released in mid-2024 after serving his sentence, he immediately resumed his criminal activities, and found in this tax amnesty operation a favorable opportunity to make new victims.

According to Assabathis time, he put people wishing to clear their arrears with the tax administration into confidence, by offering to intervene to make them pay a rate lower than that of 5% required by the tax administration.

The people he targeted were invited to give him the amount he had agreed with them, a check or a sum in cash; in return, he subsequently gave them documents bearing false stamps from the tax administration, attesting that they had paid their dues and that their tax situation was now regularized.

His victims then left, with the feeling of having gotten away with it cheaply.

However, Assaba indicates that one of them, a woman, quickly realized that the documents he had given her were not authentic.

After carefully examining the document, which contained her personal data, this taxpayer realized that it had been produced with a scanner and was therefore not authentic.

She therefore decided to file a complaint with the police. The elements of the anti-gang brigade, which had taken up this matter, set an ambush for this scammer, and patiently waited for him at the place he had agreed with the taxpayer that he had managed to fool.

The crook showed up at the meeting place, driving a vehicle with a license plate located in Rabat, and was arrested there.

Assaba explains that, according to his victims, the scammer took care of his appearance and that, to make a good impression, he often presented himself to his victims in a luxury car, elegantly tied and dressed in a suit.