Investigations reveal that the suspects had deposited amounts reaching 80% of the value of apartments in residences under construction, through reservation contracts, reports Hespress. But the work undertaken as part of these projects was suspended for years, without them being completed or housing conformity certificates (residential permits) being issued to the supposed beneficiaries. In addition to real estate, real estate developers invested in other activities such as import-export, agriculture, among others.
Read: Real estate in Morocco: Faced with money laundering, the State responds
Investigations also confirm collusion between developers and suspected customers, through the number of reservations made with unique identities and the nature of the properties, whose prices exceed the direct housing support ceilings. The stopped real estate projects, the subject of the checks, had been strategically located to maintain the prices of residential real estate and facilitate their rapid resale, investigators further reveal.
ANRF inspectors thus discovered that they were using fictitious sales offices in order to justify the legality of the projects marketed and to avoid suspicion. In addition, no reservations or sales have been recorded through banking channels, through real estate loans. The reservations included indications that the real estate financing was carried out by direct cash payment.
To read: Money laundering: new rules for real estate agencies
In total, 54 cases – representing an annual increase of 25.58% – relating to acts suspected of being linked to money laundering or underlying crimes, as well as the financing of terrorism were transmitted. to prosecutors at the courts of first instance of Rabat, Casablanca, Fez and Marrakech, as well as to the attorney general at the Court of Appeal of Rabat.
Furthermore, the number of reports of suspected money laundering received by the ANRF amounts to 5,171, an annual growth of 53.76%.
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