Walter Finch
ONE of Europe’s most wanted cocaine traffickers has been arrested in Morocco, bucking the country’s trend as a safe haven for gangsters.
Younes El Ballouti, known as El Magico, was picked up by police in a Tangier shisha bar on September 29 and taken to Casablanca’s Ain Sebaa prison.
For years he has been a fugitive face of the Mocro Maffia, the Dutch-Moroccan syndicate blamed for flooding Europe with cocaine and leaving a trail of shootings from Amsterdam to Antwerp to the Costa del Sol.
The timing is striking. His detention comes as Dubai – once the ultimate bolt hole for Europe’s crime lords – has finally started clamping down on its mafia tenants.
READ MORE: Narco submarines, spider-men and a wave of arrests rock Spain’s cocaine underworld
Just last month Scottish gangland figures Ross McGill, Steven Lyons, Stephen Jamieson and Steven Larwood were arrested in coordinated raids in Dubai.
Earlier this year the United Arab Emirates also extradited Irish mobster Sean McGovern, a senior Kinahan lieutenant, back to Dublin.
The Kinahans themselves remain at liberty in the emirate, but prosecutors say new money-laundering laws are putting their operations under pressure.
Meanwhile, 36-year-old trafficker Faysal EB is facing extradition to Belgium for a 2020 conviction for importing 1.3 tonnes of cocaine.
He was first arrested in 2019 in a warehouse in Niel, near Antwerp, while supervising the unloading of the shipment.
With Dubai shifting, Morocco has increasingly become the fallback refuge for mafia figures of a certain origin.
Tangier and Casablanca now host dozens of Moroccan-born fugitives wanted in Europe, shielded by the country’s constitution which bars the extradition of its nationals.
Spain’s annual report from the Spanish Public Prosecutor’s Office for 2024 has warned that Morocco has become a ‘key regrouping point’ for the Mocro Maffia and other networks after Dubai lost its status as a sanctuary, with investigators across Europe left frustrated by their inability to secure extraditions across the Strait.
Investigators say that the loophole has turned Morocco into one of the last safe havens for traffickers.
The report goes on to allege that Dutch and Belgian feuds within the Mocro Maffia are now playing out on Spanish soil, with protected witnesses assassinated as a warning to others.
Another kingpin, Karim Bouyakhrichan, vanished after his arrest and bail in Marbella in January 2024.
He is now thought to be hiding out in Morocco, while those responsible for killing two Guardia Civil in Barbate in February 2024 also fled there.
READ MORE: Spanish police catch narcos dumping drugs into the Strait of Gibraltar and seize almost seven tonnes
The pilot who rammed the police boat, Karim El Baqqali, was later arrested with Moroccan cooperation.
However he was not extradited to Spain – he ‘willingly’ handed himself over to Spanish authorities.
Thus with this complicated history, El Ballouti’s arrest came as a surprise.
He had been subject to Interpol red notices and is wanted in both Belgium and the Netherlands for international drug trafficking, yet Moroccan authorities previously did not lift a finger.
Whether his arrest marks a new dawn in international law enforcement remains to be seen.
Moroccan media outlet Le Desk, reports that he was only arrested for passport fraud committed inside Morocco – not his cocaine empire in Europe.
Since Moroccan nationals cannot be extradited, El Ballouti is only facing charges domestically and not for the international crimes for which he is pursued.
Meanwhile, his clan has grown into one of the most powerful international criminal empires, funnelling cocaine through Antwerp and Rotterdam while using southern Spain for laundering and logistics, according to the annual report from the Spanish Public Prosecutor’s Office.
It describes how Moroccan-origin networks continue to drive drug smuggling into Cadiz, Malaga and Almeria, with local Spanish prosecutors handling a surge in cases linked to the Mocro Maffia.
Corruption, paramilitary violence and the existence of safe havens across the Strait have created a criminal ecosystem that feeds directly into daily life on the southern coast, it goes on to warn.
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