The Moroccan mafia (, , ) is a term that describes various criminal organisations that are primarily made up of people of Moroccan descent. These organisations are specialized in trafficking large quantities of cocaine and synthetic drugs through Spain, Portugal, the Netherlands and Belgium, from where it is distributed to the rest of the European continent, thus being one of the most dominant participants in the European drug trade.
In broader terms of Moroccan organized crime, this also includes northern Moroccan hash kingpins and southern Moroccan traffickers who play a key-role in the African drug trade, as well as in human trafficking, arms trafficking and the trafficking of contraband such as cigarettes and alcohol, although they are seen as a separate entity from the Mocro Maffia who are mostly active in the northern part of Morocco and Europe.
Moroccan criminal networks in Europe have mainly been active since the 1990s, and consist mostly of Belgian and Dutch citizens with a Moroccan immigrant background. These criminal networks have privileged relationships with Colombian and Mexican cartels, and they often import drugs into Europe through the harbours of Antwerp, Rotterdam and Algeciras.
The Moroccan mafia does not, however, include Moroccan Jewish crime families such as the Abergil Organization as well as the Abutbul and Domrani clans, who are rather considered to be a part of the Israeli mafia. That said, Moroccan-Israeli mafia clans are known for having collaborated closely together with the Mocro Maffia in the Netherlands and Belgium, especially in the worldwide distribution of synthetic drugs such as MDMA. This is mostly due to the fact that the Netherlands is the largest producer of MDMA and amphetamines in the world.
Overview
The Moroccan mafia started to gain a lot of attention in Dutch and Belgian media outlets when a large shipment of cocaine was stolen by the Turtle clan in the Port of Antwerp, in 2012. This eventually led to a gang war amongst multiple criminal organisations which the Dutch and Belgian media outlets described as the infamous Mocro-War.
From this point on, many people from Dutch- and Belgian-Moroccan descent were killed in various shootouts across Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Morocco and Suriname. Later on, Ridouan Taghi became known as the most prominent figure within the Moroccan mafia, who had a large share in the European cocaine trade, and he was also responsible for a lot of gangland killings across Europe. He is currently jailed in a maximum security prison in the Netherlands awaiting his trial. His right-hand man Saïd Razzouki is currently jailed in Bogotá, Colombia, awaiting his extradition to the Netherlands.
In Antwerp, the term Borgerokko-Maffia is often used due to the large impact of the illegal economy in the district of Borgerhout. The trade of this illegal economy has its origins in the Moroccan street gangs of Antwerp and Amsterdam, which is described in the 2014 published book Borgerokko Maffia by Raf Sauviller, and also in the book Mocro Maffia by author and criminologist Martijn Schrijver.
The Moroccan mafia has appeared in most of the large Belgian and Dutch cities including Antwerp, Brussels, Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Almere. In the mid-2010s, criminal organisations were also established in southern Spain (mainly around the Costa del Sol region), but also in the rest of Europe, South America and more recently in the United Arab Emirates. According to the Dutch investigator Pieter Tops, the Moroccan mafia gains a revenue of around 20 billion euros a year in the Netherlands alone.
In September 2019, the Dutch politician Geert Wilders was trying to convince the Dutch government to launch an attack on drug traffickers. He also pleaded for a black list of the most dangerous criminal organisations that were operating on Dutch soil. This statement came right after the beheading of Nabil Amzieb, the attacks on the headquarters of Dutch news outlets De Telegraaf and Panorama, and the murders on journalist Martin Kok and lawyer Derk Wiersum, on which the latter was considered to be an attack on the Dutch legal system and the Dutch state.