ATTIJARIWAFA BANK EUROPE SANCTIONED IN FRANCE FOR MONEY LAUNDERING AND TERRORIST FINANCING: The dirty fortune of M6

The largest bank in Morocco and the region in terms of assets and customers, Attijariwafa Bank Europe, a subsidiary of the Al Mada holding company that is directly owned by the royal family, was splashed by a gross financial scandal in France. Money laundering and terrorist financing, just that! The accusations point to a lack of transparency and vigilance on transactions. But, and to tell the truth, its leaders turned a blind eye to huge funds thus purposely laundered to end up in terrorist networks.

Following its serious breaches, the Moroccan banking consortium was fined €500,000 and notified of a reprimand for several grievances related to a flagrant violation of the rules of transparency in the management of funds. This is to say the origin of the prosperous business of Moroccan dignitaries. Starting with the head of the hierarchy, where "His Majesty" the king, alone, has a fortune of 8.2 billion dollars. In addition to the case of laundering drug money, there is thus a case of terrorist financing to the credit of Mohammed VI.

In any case, this is what the Sanctions Committee of the Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority revealed in an extensive 13-page report. After conducting extensive investigations in the meshes of Attijariwafa's Europe division, this French financial control body discovered the pot aux roses. Indeed, the Moroccan banking consortium is accused of having lacked rigour in the control of financial transactions, which ultimately turned out to be laundered funds used to finance terrorism.

In total, this bank is prosecuted in 18 cases concerning the dubious transfer of funds and retail banking and to which are added 4 other files inherent to the activity of bank correspondence.

According to the document relating to these sanctions, whose decision was rendered on December 24, the suspicious transactions were carried out without the knowledge of the French government agency Tracfin (Processing of intelligence and action against clandestine financial circuits). However, banking rules and laws are clear on this subject.

AWBE drags the pans

Also on the list of grievances are 13 other offences related to the transfer of funds. Cites the document in particular: "In these cases, AWBE should have suspected possible money laundering because of the following elements: the high amount of transactions carried out in relation to the known income of the customer (...), operations involving movements of cash important in relation to income (...), the absence of any proof or probative proof of the origin of the funds due, in particular, to the nature of the proof (...) or its seniority in relation to the operations carried out. »