Algeria steps up security measures on international air trips

Algeria’s security forces set up a joint mechanism to step up surveillance measures in the International Airport of Houari Boumediene on some trips to Arab and European countries.

• This comes as security forces discovered a large number of attempts to smuggle hard currency on airplanes.
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• The new mechanism imposes a meticulous surveillance on people working in certain airliners especially in trips to Cairo, Tunis, Marseille, Spain, Dubai and London. Investigations showed that trips are used to smuggle huge sums of hard currency.
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• Sources say some foreign companies working in services sector buy large sums of hard currency from the black market and transfer them illegally to their native countries.
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• Earlier in the last few weeks, border guards discovered four envelops full with hard currency on airplane going to Cairo. A large number of smugglers were caught in Algeria’s eastern borders. Some 2.11 million euros were recovered.
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• According to the same sources, some operators adopted a new strategy to smuggle hard currency from Algeria. They make a deal with people living abroad and have interests in Algeria to give them huge sums in the local currency. In return, they get money in hard currency in Europe, Egypt or some countries in the Gulf.
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• “This operation had a hand in the increasing exchange rate in the black market as smugglers deal with them in eastern Algeria or in the capital,” said the same sources.