Spanish TV channel accused of portraying a valet parker as Pablo Escobar of Morocco

MOROCCO has accused the Spanish television channel, La Cuatro, of airing a documentary it described as a setup.

A Punto de Mira programme broadcast earlier this month featured a Moroccan portrayed as the Pablo Escobar of Morocco, earning €180,000 a year selling a drug manufactured with tranquillisers obtained from the Spanish health system.

According to the Moroccan authorities, the so-called drug dealer was a car-parking valet who leads a modest and blameless existence in Tangiers where he lives with his mother.

Al Yaoum lied because he was told to do so in return for 2,000 dirhams, the Tangiers police concluded after questioning him.

A Moroccan newspaper, Akhbar Al Yaoum, claimed afterwards that the Spanish documentary makers worked from a pre-written script and did not apply for reporting authorisation, entering Morocco as tourists, not journalists.

Production company Unicorn refuted the claims and declared that at no moment was the reporting faked.

“We know that we told the uncomfortable truth, but we didn’t pay anybody and it wasn’t a setup,” the company said. “It’s possible to traffic medication and be a valet parker.”

Mediaset, which owns La Cuatro, has since analysed the images of the so-called “Escobar” and Akhbar Al Yaoum and found that the person who was arrested is not the same person who appeared in the documentary.

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