Judicial police in Tinghir, working with Morocco’s national territory surveillance directorate (DGST) and under the public prosecutor, seized 28 kilograms of chira, the cannabis resin known as hashish, and arrested four people, two of them women.[1] The four are suspected of belonging to a network that moves and sells drugs in several areas of Tinghir province.[1] The operation began with surveillance of a woman travelling from Fez, who was stopped at an ambush on the outskirts of Boumalne Dadès in a car she was driving, with her young daughter beside her.[1] A search with sniffer dogs from the Ouarzazate canine unit found the 28 kilograms, part of it carefully hidden inside the car’s bodywork.[1] She had come through Imilchil and Amsemrir to reach Boumalne Dadès in an attempt to avoid the checkpoints on National Road 10, and had brought her daughter along to deflect suspicion and make the trip look ordinary.[1]
A second ambush caught another woman from Boumalne Dadès who was waiting to receive the shipment and is suspected of distributing the resin to dealers in the area.[1] Questioning her led investigators to two other men suspected of distributing drugs in Kelaat M’Gouna, Boumalne Dadès and Tinghir, bringing the number held to four.[1] Neither woman had a criminal record, but the husband of one of them is serving a drug sentence in Ouarzazate prison and is suspected of instructing her from his cell on obtaining hashish shipments and passing them to small dealers.[1]
All four were brought before the King’s Prosecutor at the Tinghir first-instance court and prosecuted in custody on charges of possessing, transporting and trafficking drugs.[1] They were taken to the local prison in Ouarzazate.[2] Police said their inquiries were continuing to identify anyone else linked to the case.[3]
