Newspaper article 11, Contraband Modern in the Fes Medina

The Smugling Adventure : a Way of Life and an Economical Loss!

By Mustapha Al-Abbassi

Al Ahdath Almaghribya, No. 691, December 10, 2000

The adventure of smuggling starts from the forth, smuggling goods and products. The smugglers who represent the poor social classes, who simply look for a way to get money, are faced with many circumstances. Some of them are graduated from universities, women, widows, and even children. One half of them deals with smuggled goods, the other half lives on the account of the little they earn for the services they would do for sellers, such as taking out the goods from Ceuta or Melilla and cross the frontiers, otherwise carrying them on their backs and dare the long distances across the wilderness. This is how smuggling has been transformed to turn into a business for people with no income; thus their lives are bound to the revenues from smuggling foreign goods.

The testimonies of these citizens tell the stories of their adventures during the smuggling trips. Some said they lost half of their trade; others lost everything, while others claimed they made successful transactions. These fellow citizens who manage to live thanks to contraband launch their trips from the north: the crossing point of the foreign products; they bring on their backs 50% of the TVs spread across the different Moroccan markets. Other products rival local production and almost destroy it. That is then the negative facet of contraband; and one million dollars are lost in this pilgrimage from the North to the South. According to some Moroccan economists, though the northern zone is the point of departure of the smuggled merchandise they remain the poorest terms of infrastructure since these revenues are being invested for the sake of personal economic capital, while the highest rate of demographic growth is set in the North.

Ceuta Gate: The Intertwisting Threads of Subsistence Contraband:

All that happens in Ceuta entry of smuggling products is nothing more than a subsistence contraband that cannot be uplifted to the level of high and well organized contraband that can be pursued at any border zone, even in local ports situated far away from Ceuta and Melilla.

The car slowed down as it reached the customer’s line on the road of Ceuta. The driver is submitted to the usual procedures. The customs officers are busy with the cars coming from Ceuta and this driver will undergo the same examination on his way back. Women sitting at the back looked at the customers’ faces; one of them whispered: “I hope everything would be alright.”

The road from Ceuta to Tetuan has become a black spot in the Moroccan economy; it is the path of contraband and thousands of goods cross this line everyday. How do they manage to take out this quantity of goods? What are the influences of this practice on the national economy? What is the attitude of the two extremities- the passive and the active one - of this practice of contrabanding? What are the real reasons behind the spreading of this phenomenon and its consistency?

All that is taken out from Ceuta on the backs of the smugglers is nothing but a little part of what is hidden. What is really worth calling contraband is received at Tangier and Casablanca ports. Moreover, the markets in F’nidaq and Tetuan only sell a small part of what is taken to other Moroccan cities by various means: cars, buses, trains…

F’nidaq: Markets on Both Sides:

Along the road between Tetuan and Ceuta (40km) the women kept on uttering expressions of sorrow and fear reflecting the bitter situation they live in: “May Allah have mercy upon us and offer us another job instead.” One of them said, whereas the others replied together: “Amen!” the way they uttered those expressions reflected the pressures of life on them that made them select this profession and endure the disgrace, out of which only little is earned and the rest given away to customs officers and transportation workers.

According to them, the relationship between the smugglers and the customs officers at the entry of Ceuta is very queer. The same is seen on the road to Tetuan markets or “Derb Amara” in Casablanca; one could even add the customs officers to this equation as those who gain a lot by ignoring the goods passing by. These women know the names of the customs officers and the police officers, and they know their moods too.

Before you reach the “Diwana”, there is F’nidaq; the city accused to be the site of contraband and smugglers, although its people are simply compelled to smuggle for their economic condition and due to the position of the city itself. It is a city, which has two markets on its two sides: at the entry and at the exit; they have become big markets with many stalls spread at random for selling smuggled products. It is the first station for contraband products before reaching the rest of Moroccan cities.

Ceuta is the occupied city; its image is bound to contraband and foreign products in the Moroccan imagination. The products brought from Ceuta have a special place in Moroccan houses and that is why people prefer them to the national products.

Ceuta Gate: A Path for the Goods

Nearby the “Diwana”, there is always a permanent movement: cars that get into the city, queues of people trying to reach the taxi station. Most of these people carry plastic bags stuffed with products and packed in a special way to make them suitable for being held and hide what they have inside. A crowd of people stands before the control-offices to hand in their passports. An authoritative source affirmed that the number of citizens who get into the city does not cross 20 thousand individuals. Yet other sources claim that the true number is actually the double.

The tip of the mountain near the frontiers looks like a chain of human beings coming from the opposite side; their backs bent over by burden of different types of goods. This passage has been the way for both immigrants and smugglers who wish to gain the occupied city of Ceuta; yet Moroccan authorities, since last July, have turned it into an official and discreet passage for the overloaded smugglers.

These smugglers have been since July obliged to make distances longer than before across the circular passage they call “Al Khandak”. It was built for security reasons, and thanks to this method, the problems that used to once occur across the mountain will cease. Yet, most of the smugglers consider it unnecessary and lacking proper facilities.

The second security reason behind making a circular passage is to elongate the distance and thus reduce the number of entry and exit passages for the porters whose task is to enter and take out the products to the station. “Taking out the merchandise is not that easy, it is all dependent on how smart you are,” claims a young man insisting that neither revenues nor capital are safe.

“Contra banding Types are Different; Each One Has His Own Tricks”:

It is difficult to count how many people do this job, but what is sure is that it is the source of bread for thousands of people. They have preferred running risks with smuggling to riding “death boats”. They are widows, divorced women, jobless and graduated youth, and little children…they are all the same having the same source of living. Simple arithmetic would demonstrate that more than a million of people live thanks to this activity (porters, sellers; taxi drivers…)

This form of smuggling, according to economists, is subsistence contraband, for all the circumstances (population density, joblessness, drought, Spanish frontiers…) push people to adopt it as a job.

A study, held by a specialist researcher in Mediterranean Studies about social and economic conditions of Ceuta and Melillia in the North of Morocco divided contraband and the smugglers into four types. The first type was the seasonal contraband (adopted by nonprofessional smugglers who do the job for additional revenues). The second type is consistence contraband that is practiced by a great number of small smugglers; it is the only source of living for them and it is widespread in Mediterranean Morocco. This type of smuggling has lessened the number of deviant people, and according to an equation 20000 smugglers are less dangerous than 20000 delinquents.

Moreover, the small smugglers employ small sums of money since they rely on circulating simple products such as tea, honey, rice, perfumes…they usually use traditional means to transport these goods to escape paying customs.

Well-organized smugglers, formed with specialized groups in order to circulate specific merchandise, adopt the big form of smuggling that is worth to be called contraband. This contraband is sophisticated and they use developed techniques in infiltrating the goods; it also provides the capital used to perpetuate the small type of contraband. The goods smuggled in this case are TVs, alcohol, cigarettes; and there are who smuggle currency, gold, and diamonds.

In the shadow of the social and economical states, consistence contraband remains the only solution for thousands of Moroccan families; especially desperate women and children are the ones who adopt smuggling as a job more than anyone else does.

Translator: Hind Salhi