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Problems continue to pile up for the Alj family. After Mohamed Alj, the son of the president of the General Confederation of Moroccan Enterprises (CGEM), Chakib Alj, was accused, among other charges, of raping a French lawyer, authorities in Safi raided on Thursday, December 12, a fish feed production plant owned by the company UNIMER, which belongs to Said Alj, the cousin of the CGEM head, in connection with a drug trafficking case.
Police believe a drug shipment seized at the Casablanca port, reportedly destined for Belgium according to a well-informed source contacted by Yabiladi, was prepared and packaged inside the UNIMER plant, which specializes in producing fish meal and oil for aquaculture and animal feed.
The same source explained that security teams from Casablanca, in collaboration with Safi security officers, arrived at the plant on Thursday around three in the afternoon. The facility was cordoned off, and a wide-ranging search was conducted.
The security teams remained inside the plant until midnight before moving to a Safi hotel and returning to the plant the following day.
Key figures questioned amidst plant raid
During the raid, security officers interrogated «the general plant manager and the head of the production unit», according to media sources, which also reported that the customs officer responsible for clearing the truck carrying the container with fish meal products from the plant to the Casablanca port—where the drugs were seized—will also be questioned. It is estimated that the seized container held about 20 tons of fish meal, packed in plastic bags.
Investigations suggest that the company importing these goods, based in Belgium, may have used a container and workers from outside the plant to pack the goods elsewhere, after which the drugs were inserted among the fish meal. Police are investigating whether the company or its workers were complicit in this operation or negligent in their oversight.
This raid follows the thwarting of an attempt to smuggle 3 tons and 619 kilograms of hashish in an international transport container at the Casablanca port on Wednesday, in a joint operation between national security services and customs.
Yabiladi tried to reach UNIMER for a comment but an employee refused to proceed with the inquiry upon learning of its subject.
