Customs Officers, Importers Behind Money Smuggling To Dubai, China Face Jail

Algiers Sidi M’hamed Criminal Court postponed, on Wednesday, the case of the violation of the exchange law and the movement of capital to and from abroad and inflating the invoices to the next July 17, which involved 22 accused, including customs agents, importers, traders and owners of commercial records, at the request of the defense to check out the file and prepare the pleadings.

An informed source said that there are 6 defendants in provisional custody of the penal institution of Harrache (Algiers), while the rest of the involved benefited from the procedures of direct recall.

The National Treasury and the National Bank of Algeria joined the proceedings to be initiated as civil parties in view of the billions that have been smuggled from Algeria to Dubai and China.

According to the same source, the circumstances of the case date back to January 2016, when the customs and border police at Houari Boumediene airport received information about doubts on the import of parcels belonging to blank disks related to automated media systems, and following the investigation, the suspects were arrested by the Anti-Corruption and Fraud Services. During the investigation, it was found that the traffickers were importing their goods from China and Dubai and after transferring the money in hard currency to their clients in the two countries, they introduced them to the Algerian banks in national currency after inflating the invoices.

Investigations led to the identification of the elements of the cell of smuggling funds by importing dummy goods.

They also used commercial records to carry out imports in exchange for giving money to their owners, including one of those involved, a food products’ trader in Blida province (western Algiers) who carried out an import operation with a record of more than 3 billion centimes and there are some operations that reached DZD 1 billion.

The trial is expected to reveal other facts that are not mentioned in the records of customs.