Belguel Moroccan Scandal - From Agadir 2021

Belguel Moroccan Scandal - From Agadir 2021

Every scandal has a spark. For Belguel, it came on June 12, 2021. A widow named Rachida O. , who had invested her late husband’s pension (820,000 dirhams) into two "ready-to-move-in" shops in the Ancienne Foire project, arrived at the site to find an empty lot. No shops. No foundation. Only a rusty fence and a sign reading "SHD – Future Site."

Her desperate plea to a local notary went viral after the notary recorded her crying in his office and posted the 47-second video to Facebook. The caption read: "Question: Why does the Agadir Urban Agency give permits for air?" belguel moroccan scandal from agadir 2021

Within 48 hours, the video had 1.2 million shares. The hashtag #BelguelScam began trending across Morocco, Algeria, and the Moroccan diaspora in France. Every scandal has a spark

In late spring 2021, the port city of Agadir – a major tourist hub and the “capital of the Souss” – became the epicenter of a clandestine investigation code-named Operation Belguel. Named after a fictitious import-export company (“Belguel SARL”), the case allegedly linked Moroccan land developers, Belgian Moroccan drug lords, and customs officers at Agadir’s commercial port. Unlike typical drug busts, Belguel involved parallel use of COVID-19 health passes to smuggle chemical precursors. The scandal never reached Moroccan courts; instead, a series of unexplained resignations in Agadir’s municipal council occurred in July 2021. This paper reconstructs the events using leaked Belgian federal police documents, investigative journalism from Mediacité (Belgium) and TelQuel (Morocco), and parliamentary questions in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives. , who had invested her late husband’s pension

According to a June 2021 Belgian Federal Judicial Police report (leaked to De Morgen in October 2021), Belguel SARL was registered in Casablanca in November 2020. Its nominal manager was a Belgian national of Moroccan origin, Noureddine E. (alias “Nono”), previously convicted in 2016 for drug trafficking. The company claimed to export frozen sardines and citrus fruits to Belgium. Investigators found that:


Every scandal has a spark. For Belguel, it came on June 12, 2021. A widow named Rachida O. , who had invested her late husband’s pension (820,000 dirhams) into two "ready-to-move-in" shops in the Ancienne Foire project, arrived at the site to find an empty lot. No shops. No foundation. Only a rusty fence and a sign reading "SHD – Future Site."

Her desperate plea to a local notary went viral after the notary recorded her crying in his office and posted the 47-second video to Facebook. The caption read: "Question: Why does the Agadir Urban Agency give permits for air?"

Within 48 hours, the video had 1.2 million shares. The hashtag #BelguelScam began trending across Morocco, Algeria, and the Moroccan diaspora in France.

In late spring 2021, the port city of Agadir – a major tourist hub and the “capital of the Souss” – became the epicenter of a clandestine investigation code-named Operation Belguel. Named after a fictitious import-export company (“Belguel SARL”), the case allegedly linked Moroccan land developers, Belgian Moroccan drug lords, and customs officers at Agadir’s commercial port. Unlike typical drug busts, Belguel involved parallel use of COVID-19 health passes to smuggle chemical precursors. The scandal never reached Moroccan courts; instead, a series of unexplained resignations in Agadir’s municipal council occurred in July 2021. This paper reconstructs the events using leaked Belgian federal police documents, investigative journalism from Mediacité (Belgium) and TelQuel (Morocco), and parliamentary questions in the Belgian Chamber of Representatives.

According to a June 2021 Belgian Federal Judicial Police report (leaked to De Morgen in October 2021), Belguel SARL was registered in Casablanca in November 2020. Its nominal manager was a Belgian national of Moroccan origin, Noureddine E. (alias “Nono”), previously convicted in 2016 for drug trafficking. The company claimed to export frozen sardines and citrus fruits to Belgium. Investigators found that: