How smugglers sell their goods through legal channels

For tobacco, traffickers use stick packs sold legally or false information on smuggling packets. 

Alcoholic beverages, fiscal marking stamps are printed and pasted falsified on the bottles.

The phenomenon of smuggling is assuming alarming proportions in Morocco. With the aim to increase their margin and expand their targets now, traffickers do not hesitate to opt for new ingenious techniques to introduce illegal products into the legal distribution chain. Therefore, we can not be surprised if you find a pack of cigarettes manufactured in Algeria exhibited in a monogram of Casablanca tobacconist, or a bottle of alcohol from Spain or counterfeit sold in a sweatshop in a prestigious pub Marrakech legally.

In fact, this phenomenon affects these two main products. For cigarettes, it is important to note that in Morocco this market is estimated at over 18 billion units in 2014, nearly 4 billion units of counterfeit or contraband, or nearly 200 million packages. Over a third of these packages is marketed in the legal system. Flow to fill these very large quantities that come from Algeria and Mauritania mainly "smugglers now opt for the technique of reusing fiscal marking stamps," says an industry operator. Only three brands are very affected by the traffic, the Marlboro occurrence (PMI), Winston and Camel (JTI). These products whose retail price is 33 DH 32 and DH, respectively, are proposed in Algeria to 15 DH. Once introduced in Morocco, the goods are delivered directly to wholesalers whose near majority has large storage space. "It is within these deposits cigarette packages are the subject of a transfer operation," said the operator. The principle is simple: the seller sells its contraband cigarettes on the market as of Moroccan products.