Rabat – In the nick of time, just as he was about to strain diplomatic relations between Morocco and the Netherlands, detained Moroccan drug trafficker, Said Chaou, will be prosecuted for the crimes he committed, including international drug trafficking and money laundering.
As soon as the coalition government’s weekly meeting ended on Thursday afternoon, government spokesperson, Mustapha El Khalfi, stated that Chaou would be “extradited to Morocco,” adding that Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Nasser Bourita, confirmed Chaou’s arrest during the meeting.
Bourita, “informed the government’s Council of the trafficker’s arrest in the Netherlands” and said he would be prosecuted for his crimes, relayed Khalfi, who is also the Delegate Minister to the Head of Government for Relations with Parliament and Civil Society.
The spokesman added that Morocco had previously issued an arrest warrant of the notorious trafficker.
A former Member of Parliament, Chaou was arrested by Dutch authorities on Thursday morning.
A source at the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Morocco World News Thursday afternoon that consultations between Morocco and the Netherlands had increased over recent weeks to enable joint judicial procedures.
Dutch authorities acceded to the request of the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who issued a communiqué last week urgently recalling the Moroccan ambassador to The Hague for consultation. Without citing the name of the Moroccan in question, the press release noted that the ministry had “found information revealing the involvement of a drug dealer in fueling protests in the north of the Kingdom of Morocco.”
The international drug trafficker was the subject of two international arrest warrants issued by Moroccan judicial authorities for his “association with criminals” since 2010, and his involvement in “international narcotics trafficking” since 2015, said the ministry in a communiqué.
