For the first time… shocking details about the fraudulent ways to exploit it
father-in-law
Expressiveness
Unguarded crossings to return travelers before their legal residency
The defendants are being pursued on charges of violating the rules for benefiting from the tourism grant
A capital movement violation prosecutes more than 15 people
The Algerian judiciary is waging a war on criminal networks that have resorted to organized fraudulent methods to smuggle hard currency, by exploiting the “travel grant” illegally, by recruiting unemployed people and enabling them to benefit from the grant, and then reselling the collected amounts in the parallel local market.
In this context, the Economic and Financial Criminal Court, in Sidi M’hamed in Algiers, this Wednesday, July 29, will open, for the first time, the file of “tampering with the travel grant,” where the defendants, whose number exceeds 15 people, according to “Echorouk” sources, will appear before the third branch of the court for the incidents of violating the rules for benefiting from the 750-euro tourist grant, and violating the legislation and regulation related to disbursement and movement of capital.
Extensive investigations into the “travel grant tampering” file found that some networks were relying on bringing citizens into Tunisian territory legally and stamping their passports, then quickly returning them to Algeria through unguarded crossings, without spending the legal residency period estimated at 7 days, before re-entering them again with the aim of completing the formal procedures, in a complex fraud process that directly affects the stability of the exchange market.
The matter did not stop with these criminal networks. Rather, the fraud expanded to include unprofessional tourism agencies, which took advantage of the state of anxiety and fear among citizens, whether by promoting urgent trips under the pretext that the grant was about to be stopped, or by canceling trips at the last minute, which prompted many travelers to head individually to the border without regulation, while Wednesday’s trial will reveal the secrets and details of the manipulation of the 750-euro grant.
In addition, the judicial authorities have initiated public lawsuits, based on monitoring a large number of violators of the laws, and also against the background of the phenomenon of exploiting the right of unemployed youth to grants at the bank rate, in exchange for saving travel and accommodation costs only in Tunisia, and then seizing the rest of the difference provided by the process of replacing hard currency with the national currency, in the parallel market, which may reach 5 million centimes per person, which made these networks accumulate wealth in a record time, which was revealed by security and judicial investigations.
In order to limit these fraudulent methods and manipulation of the travel grant, the President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, gave instructions in the Council of Ministers on July 12th of this month, including paying the entitlement to travel, estimated at 750 euros, by bank card only.
This decision comes after recording “serious violations that caused the bleeding of hard currency, without those concerned benefiting from the right of exchange in order to travel abroad,” as it was decided that obtaining it would be the “right of exchange,” via a bank card, and not given in cash, in order to limit the recorded violations.
