Foiling Of Attempted Smuggling Of 29,000 Euros Through Algiers Houari Boumediene Airport Towards Spain

The security services at Algiers International Airport Houari Boumedienne thwarted on July 18th an attempt by a young man in his thirties to smuggle money in hard currency to Spain, with 29,000 Euros being seized while passing through the “Scanner” monitoring device.
The accused appeared before the Ain Beida municipality Court in the eastern suburbs of capital Algiers to face charges of violating the customs’ legislation regulating the exchange of money and the movement of capital to and from abroad.
The defendant contended to the Court’s judge during his interrogation that the amount of money seized from him at the Airport stemmed from charity and donations from well-meaning benefactors.
His sister, he argued, was in need of a huge sum of money meant for medical treatment as she has a 100 per cent disability, adding that she had to move around and wrap up her medical treatment in Spain.
For that purpose, he was earlier directed to the informal money exchange market for the sale of hard currency in downtown Algiers to convert the amount he had collected and put the concerted hard currency in his clothes, without knowing the regulations in force, as he claimed.
In view of the mitigating circumstances, the General Prosecutor required a one year imprisonment for the accused, in addition to a fine equivalent to the amount of the sum of money seized.