The question of “falsified gold” has sparked a lively controversy among Moroccans in recent days. It resurfaced after residents of Al-Qasr Al-Kabeer town gathered around gold shops on Tuesday night amid the dispatch of a joint customs and security committee national, to monitor certain gold shops in the city.
A few days ago, the lessor’s page “The employee” on the social networking site “Facebook” reported a confession from one of the professionals promoting “fraudulent jewelry on the Moroccan gold market”. .
The same page confirmed, through the hashtag, a professional secret, that the percentage of gold that meets the standards approved in Morocco – 18 carat purity 750 – does not exceed 20%, while the rest, according to what the page revealed through one of his followers, who said he worked in the industry, does not exceed 700 degrees of purity at best.
According to the sources in today’s statement, the joint committee which included customs and national security, which was dissolved in the Caesarea of Gold in the city of Al-Qasr Al-Kabeer, carried out an inspection and took samples from three shops selling gold jewelry, to verify the legality of the process of buying and selling gold, and to pay the customs fees for each piece of “The Footprint” gold.
Local media sources identical to the Grand Palace confirmed the possibility of selling these stores as “fraudulent gold”, noting that many victims were defrauded, including those who went into a state of hysteria, after discovering that a fraud had occurred. .
The head of the Association of Gold Merchants of Caesarea at the Grand Palace said in a press release that the process carried out by the joint committee is routine and normal, considering that the interest it arouses only results of “the reproduction of rumours”. , lies and lies and heinous settling of scores against some gold dealers, who processed Caesarea gold for Hajj. Strangers and intruders, and a large number of them gathered together, and the confusion of the work of the customs committee.
The head of the association added, in the same press release, that this committee had not visited these stores since the 90s of the last century;
The contradiction is evident in the statement of the head of the Caesarea Gold Merchants’ Association to the Grand Palace, who considered the committee’s solutions to the stores “an intrusion” and described them at other times as routine and ordinary.
The assertion of the president of the association that the gold stores have not been supervised since the 90s of the last century raises many questions, such as:
To what extent do the competent authorities and customs monitor this sector which experiences transactions of several billion dirhams on a monthly basis?
What protection do these authorities guarantee to the Moroccan consumer in this area?
Do Moroccans buy gold or gold-plated copper?
In this regard, Bouazza El-Kharti, president of the National University for Consumer Protection, said that if there is a sector that knows institutional fraud, it is the gold sector in Morocco and all its types.
Al-Kharti added, in a statement to the Bayan Al-Youm newspaper, that there is a mafia that controls the market, although there is a joint committee in charge of printing gold to distinguish the real from the real. unreal.
Al-Kharti pointed out that when a woman goes to buy a gold belt “a bandage” which has the caliber hallmark, but the belt contains, in many cases, a substance made of copper, so the trick is deceived by the consumer who unknowingly buys copper at the price of gold.
Al-Kharti pointed out that this sector, in which fraudulent behavior harms the consumer and the state, is not subject to any surveillance, drawing attention to this market, which affects the country’s economy and harms the consumer. in case of fraud.
Abdul Samad Adendin