Investigations revealed that this network conducted eight operations of drug trafficking between March and August 2010, during which it smuggled 600 kg of cocaine into Morocco across the borders of Algeria and Mauritania, the minister said at a press briefing in Rabat.
    This dangerous network, he went on, is led by the barons of Colombian and Spanish nationality, who maintain strong ties with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and cartels based in Latin America, with the complicity of Moroccan traffickers.
    He said that quantities of cocaine and chira, several vehicles and tear gases, in addition to large sums of money in dirhams and foreign currency were seized, adding that the network created fictitious companies in several countries to commit money diversion and laundering.
    The minister stressed that this network has branches in Europe, Algeria, and the North of Mali, and maintains links with AQIM, which makes of the region a base for terrorist and criminal operations in the Sahel.
      Cherqaoui also affirmed that there is a “clear coordination and proven collaboration” between the elements of AQIM and drug trafficking networks.
       He noted that the network obtains the drugs from Latin America, notably Colombia and Venezuela, and transports it to northern Mali where it is stored before the terrorist groups smuggle it through the Sahara of Mali, Mauritania and Algeria to the borders with Morocco, in order to sell part of it across the national territory, while the rest is forwarded to European markets.
       The AQIM provides logistical support and arrange the transportation of drugs in the Sahel region, said Cherqaoui, indicating that elements of Al- Qaeda brought, in November 2009, a truck loaded with fuel to the parking location of a Boeing that was used for the transportation of several tonnes of cocaine from Venezuela to northern Mali, in an area under Al Qaeda’s control.
    The plane, which could not take off due to the fuel’s poor quality, was burned by the terrorist elements, he said.
    These facts show that the terrorist elements, in search of funds to finance their terrorist activities, "resort to all means and benefit from their knowledge of the Sahara's terrain, which is difficult to access, and weapons in their possession, as well as from adequate means of transportation to ensure the necessary protection to drug barons in their movements in the Sahel-Sahara region," the minister noted.
    "In order to secure a safe way for cocaine trafficking to the Iberian Peninsula and Europe, this network has developed strong ties with Moroccan traffickers of chira to transport cocaine and chira by sea or by using light planes, which have repeatedly violated the Moroccan airspace, especially in northern regions, from Spain and Portugal,” the minister added.
    Cherqaoui said that based on these data, all countries concerned must redouble vigilance, stressing the need for strengthening security cooperation and setting up common, anticipatory and preventive strategies to deal with the dangers they face.
       He also highlighted the “threat posed to foreign nationals who are in the Sahel-Saharan Africa region, where they might be kidnapped, killed or used as hostages to get ransoms for the purchase of weapons and financing of terrorist groups.”
      The minister said the situation is getting worse in the Sahel and Sahara in view of the overlapping interests of the Al Qaeda organization and drug mafias.
       These mafias do not hesitate to settle their accounts with some of their members by resorting to the kidnapping or killing, sometimes in cruel manner, as was the case for a Colombian citizen who was killed and whose body was cut in Bamako, he said.
    Morocco, aware of its responsibilities to preserve security and stability at the regional and international levels, considers that the regional and international cooperation is a strategic choice to fight terrorism and organized crime, Cherqaoui concluded.