Travelers Who Carry More Than 7000 Euros To Face Prison On Charges Of Smuggling Currency

The border police and customs authorities started implementing a joint mechanism to tighten control over direct flights to Turkey, France, Belgium and the United Arab Emirates, following the discovery of large smuggling of foreign currency. Meanwhile, official sources at the Directorate of Border Police in the General Directorate of National Security confirmed orders for judicial lawsuits against each traveler who owns 35 euros more than the amount that is legally allowed.

According to Echorouk sources, the joint mechanism between the departments of national security and customs, concerning the tightening of flights on the four countries, came after a series of investigations that were opened by the same security authorities, which revealed that smugglers and a number of travel agencies are exploiting these trips to smuggle currency in a terrible way to abroad.

In the details, an official source at the General Directorate of Customs revealed that investigations into the smuggling of funds showed 778 Swiss bank accounts, 3 banks in Turkey and one bank in the UAE, where the owners illegally transfer funds to them. In coordination with the gangs of drug trafficking, and the mafia of import and export, and manipulation of invoices and documents of financial transactions in Algeria.

“The smuggling process is not limited to people only, as the investigations revealed the involvement of a significant number of travel agencies, where the owners transfer funds abroad by dividing them on passengers with a value that does not exceed the maximum allowed which is 7000 euros, to retrieve them on board or after entering the territory of the country to which they are destined”.

“The majority of Algerian tourists are unaware that the money which they pay to the tourist agent, leave the national territory in the direction of the foreign agent, in a manner that is not legal, or in a way that is not dealt with by the law of cash and the loan, as the tourist agent transfers the money abroad by dividing it on tourists”.

On the sidelines of the “National Forum on Security Communication and its Role in Developing Security Awareness”, an official source at the Directorate of Border Police at the General Directorate of National Security revealed that the policy that is currently being pursued by the border police departments at ports, airports and border posts, to tighten the screws on money smugglers abroad, in accordance with the instructions of the National Security Command, every foreign traveler has 35 Euros more than the amount that is allowed to be withdrawn from him/her and an investigation is opened against him/her.