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Agadir – The arrest of a Syrian national with a stolen passport, at the Mohammed V airport in Casablanca, led to the discovery of human trafficking and irregular migration network, report local Moroccan newspapers.
Police arrested the 27-year-old Syrianfor using falsified documents and his alleged involvement in human trafficking and irregular migration.
Moroccan newspaper Assabah reports that the police arrested the suspect for using a stolen Swedish passport to leave the country.
The young man was also allegedly trying to illegally enter the European Union, but the airport staff discovered that the Swedish police had reported the theft of the passport to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL).
Read also: FBI, CIA Congratulate Morocco On Counterterrorism Efforts
According to Assabah, preliminary investigations established that the suspect bought the stolen passport in Turkey and is involved with a network of human traffickers.
Moroccan authorities have put the man in police custody, pending further investigations into his case.
Morocco has been a member of INTERPOL since 1957. One of the main purposes of the organization is to connect different national law enforcement agencies with the help of I-24/7, a global police communications network.
In 2019 INTERPOL ran the “Neptune 2” exercise, which happened across seven seaports in the six participating countries – Algeria, France, Italy, Morocco, Spain and Tunisia. The program aims to unify countries and participating organizations in their efforts to detect and fight against terrorism and other organized crime networks in the Mediterranean.
INTERPOL Secretary General Jurgen Stock explained during the exercises that the organization “acts as a global tripwire, by disrupting the movement of individuals linked to criminal and terrorist activities.”
