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Newspaper article 22, Contraband Modern in the Fes Medina

The smuggled goods of North
Female smugglers and connive men
By Sadik Bougazoul

Al Ahdath Almaghribya; 10 December 2000; number 691

The phenomenon of female contrabandist spread at the end of the 80’s. They are products brought from the north such Fnidaq, Nador, Tetouan …
Most of these goods are smuggled from Ceuta and Melilla, Spain and other European counties as well. Though these goods had managed to infiltrate in spite of the customers on the frontiers, every body attempts to unveil them on the national territory. The drivers conspire with police officers to discover them, not with the interaction to seize, but in order to gain money out of it.

Suddenly the bus stopped. The co-driver opened the door and then two officers climbed. They started examining the bus: under the seats and within the trunks. Some travelers did not understand, while others’ faces flushed of fear for their merchandise. An officer found a small bag filled up with cell phones. He asked about the owner; nobody dared to speak. When they turned to go down a woman stood up and said it was hers.

Agents of Smuggled Merchandise:

As the two officers went down, the woman followed them while the driver and the co-driver remained in their seats. The woman begged the officers to give her back her bag; but the merciless officers asserted that her bag would be seized. The bus stopped for 20 minutes, then the travelers complained. The co-driver descended, and after a while he came back with the woman who managed to get back her 30 cell phones, after giving them 1000DH.

The bus went on again. The driver and the co-driver kept on blaming the woman saying that she should have accepted to give them 500DH to ensure the safety of her merchandise. It was extortion, but the woman preerred not to give them the money; yet she lost 1000DH and then she knew that two phones had been snatched away from her bag. She cried out: “the two officers robbed two phones from my bag!” “it was for your greed” commented a woman sitting near to her. She carried on saying: “I have been doing this work for more than 15 years, I know its rules very well, in order to sneak away from the customers, we would rather negotiate with the bus owners according to the number of goods we have. In this way usually save our capitals.” She kept silence for a while then whispered to her friend: “the co-driver does not hesitate in telling the customers about the goods if he was not paid.” The bus owners are considered the intermediate agents between the smugglers and the customers. He examines the merchandise, sets the price for it and gives a part of it to the officers. Aicha carried on: “this is the rule we have to respect.” She adds that in spite of that, the risk remains present every trip, and sometimes the whole merchandise is lost.

During the long years of smuggling, Aicha lost goods in some trips. She claimed the loss of a collection of sport-shoes she took from Nador at a price of two million cents. Since then, Aicha says, she considers some specific procedures in order not to lose her money again. She also passes her merchandise around the travelers especially old men, because the officers do not doubt them to be smugglers.

Aicha brings a variety of goods: watches, recorder, camera, sport-shoes. Eventually she opted for the cell phones business, because she earns much money with the least effort. Her children take them to the markets and sell them in Casablanca.

With the increasing of vigilance on the roads, and the age, Aicha prefers to buy the goods from other smugglers of the north, at a price a little bit higher: “but it does not matter, this way I manage to escape emotional tension!”

What We are doing Is Not Contraband!

With a strong will and determination, Khadija rushed into the world of selling smuggled products. After the death of her father, her dream to achieve her studies vanished away after getting DEUG diploma in Law, to specialize in selling the northern goods with the help of her aunt.

With many difficulties, she managed to get a shop in a market near “Quissariat” Al-Mohammadi Street. Every trip requires a sum of 1000DH dispersed between customers, drivers, food, and accommodation. She makes this trip twice a month. Moreover, the most part of their money is given to the customers. She wonders why all this control? “we are not doing contraband!” because we buy the goods inside the national territory and we sell it in the same context” she frowned and added: “F’nidaq, Nador, and Tetuan are Moroccan cities just like Casablanca, so why do we have to be stopped by the customers between two Moroccan cities? If there must be any control then it should be in the frontiers.”

Khadija’s questions are many, and she gets no answers and the she finds herself compelled to pay money in order no to be controlled. Meanwhile, she waits eagerly for the year 2010 when there will be a free zone of interchange between morocco and Europe.

Translated by Hind Salhi