A court in Casablanca has sentenced 29 people, including prominent politicians, sports figures and business executives, in one of Morocco's most consequential criminal cases in recent memory. The verdicts, handed down on 25 June 2026 after more than two years of proceedings, mark the first time senior Moroccan political figures have been convicted in connection with a major drug trafficking operation. Defendants were also ordered to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and face the seizure of significant personal assets.
At the centre of the case are Said Naciri, a former lawmaker and former president of Wydad AC — one of Morocco's most celebrated football clubs — who received a 10-year prison sentence, and Abdennebi Bioui, a construction tycoon and former head of an eastern regional council, who was sentenced to 12 years. A third prominent defendant, Belkacem Mir, also a former lawmaker and former football club president, received 10 years. The three men, all former senior figures in the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM), were convicted on charges including drug possession, sale and export, corruption, forgery and violations of exchange control regulations. All denied the allegations, and as the judge read out the sentences, the courtroom erupted in protests, with relatives collapsing and weeping while police worked to restore order.
The case was set in motion by Hadj Ahmed Ben Brahim, a Malian drug lord already serving a 10-year sentence in Morocco, whom the press has dubbed the "Pablo Escobar of the Sahara." Speaking from prison, Ben Brahim alleged that his business associates — including the politicians now convicted — had helped transport cannabis resin through Morocco to Libya, Egypt, Mauritania and other parts of North Africa and the Sahel, while also illegally seizing his assets, including a luxury villa, apartments and dozens of vehicles. The defence consistently argued that the prosecution rested largely on the testimony of a convicted trafficker and that no material evidence directly linked the defendants to the alleged crimes. Lawyers for Naciri and Bioui have announced their intention to appeal.
The trial has reverberated well beyond the courtroom. Morocco is one of the world's largest producers and exporters of hashish, and while the country has legalised cannabis cultivation for medical and industrial purposes, illicit trafficking remains deeply embedded — its Mediterranean coastline providing a convenient corridor toward Europe. The case reignited a broad public debate about corruption in political life, prompting King Mohammed VI, Morocco's highest authority and a figure who rarely intervenes publicly on political matters, to call for a legally binding code of ethics to, in his words, "moralize" parliamentary life. The court ordered Bioui, Naciri and Mir to jointly pay Ben Brahim approximately $106,000 in damages, while the bulk of the financial penalties — running into hundreds of millions of dollars — are to be paid to customs authorities.