Why Police Can’t Stop Morocco’s Most Famous Scam

0:00 I'm currently in Fez Morocco,

0:01 which is quite a confusing city and one in which we very nearly

0:04 got scammed by a very popular trick I'd never heard of when in London.

0:08 No, this way.

0:09 This way.

0:11 [music] That way?

0:11 The what's it?

0:12 Oh, no, thank you then.

0:13 That man knew exactly where my hotel was.

0:15 That's crazy.

0:16 This way to the hotel.

0:17 What the hell?

0:18 How's he know where my hotel is?

0:19 What surprised me is that this scam seems to happen all the time and what makes

0:23 it [music] so hard for police to stop

0:25 is baked into the way that Fez is designed.

0:27 You see, Fez has over 9,000 twisting

0:30 and [music] turning narrow alleyways through the city.

0:32 Some are enclosed from above by balconies

0:34 and lattices full of foliage to keep [music]

0:36 out the heat and others take you deep into the bustling Medina and old markets.

0:40 In fact, this old Medina is one of the largest car-free zones in the world.

0:44 You'll be bumping shoulders with pedestrians, carts, bikes and

0:47 [music]

0:46 sometimes even mules.

0:47 If you don't know what you're doing

0:49 or you're just following Google Maps incompetently,

0:51 you can find [music] yourself lost quite easily

0:53 on one of the city's many dead-end streets.

0:58 [music] We're currently exploring the old Medina in Fez walking

1:02 to a massive massive tannery where they produce leather.

1:06 But to get there, you have to walk through

1:07 many of the winding winding streets of the city.

1:10 [music] But one of the interesting things that I learned during

1:13 today that blows my mind has to do with these street

1:15 signs cuz it's so easy to get lost on these streets

1:18 unless you know the one thing to look for.

1:22 [music] The trick to making sure you're going the right

1:24 way hides in the shape of the street signs.

1:27 [music] So, you've got hexagons and you've got squares

1:30 and the difference between them is actually quite big.

1:32 If your street name is printed on a square, that street will carry on.

1:36 It's not a dead end.

1:37 Whereas the hexagons maybe don't go down there,

1:40 especially if someone tries to convince you to.

1:47 But even if you know this, showing any sort of confusion

1:49 can get you quickly targeted by one of the city's many scammers.

1:53 I've lived in London for 13 years and London is notoriously full of people

1:56 that might be trying to take your money in some way, shape or form.

1:59 Popular trick in London is someone handing you a rose

2:01 and as soon as you touch it with your hands,

2:03 they go, "Hey, give me the money." Now,

2:05 in Fez, scams here are a little bit more different.

2:07 So much so that they nearly caught me out.

2:09 So, our first night in the city,

2:10 we were walking through and we got to this junction of a really small

2:14 street we were on and we needed to turn left onto another narrow alleyway.

2:17 But there was a couple in front of us.

2:19 So, I paused at that little [music] junction.

2:21 However, at that moment, I noticed that there was a young man sitting

2:24 nearby who just happened to stand up and I went, "That's not a good sign." So,

2:27 I immediately [music] turned down the alley

2:28 we were supposed to go and continued on.

2:30 However, he started saying, "Hey, no, it's too late.

2:33 [music] The gate's closed this this late

2:35 at night." And I was like, "What?" What?

2:37 He was like, "Yeah, this way is closed.

2:38 The gate is closed.

2:39 It's too late." And at this point, I'm like,

2:40 maybe I didn't notice the street sign was

2:42 like a not a rectangle, it was a hexagon.

2:44 And [music] also, there's so many big walls in the city.

2:46 Who knows?

2:47 Maybe the gates are closed.

2:48 This guy's just trying to help me.

2:49 And he kept saying like, "Oh, well, do you speak any English?

2:51 Like, where are you from?" And I was like,

2:52 "Are you trying to get to your hostel?

2:54 I can help you." But at this point, I realized,

2:55 "Wait a minute." It wasn't like this man said that to me and the couple

2:59 in front of me who at this point had completely ignored what was going on.

3:02 He did it after I paused to let them through and look [music] at my phone.

3:06 So, I immediately was like, "Actually,

3:07 I think I'm fine." He was like, "No, no, no, no, no,

3:09 no, I want to help you." And I was like,

3:09 "Yeah, I think I'm fine here." We carried on.

3:12 There was no gate.

3:13 There was nothing closed at all.

3:15 We [music] were absolutely fine.

3:16 This is a very popular scam in the area called the tannery scam

3:19 as Fez has a leather tannery that a lot of tourists want to go to.

3:22 And in fact, in the daytime as we've been walking through the Medina,

3:25 no less than five [music] times have we had

3:27 a different young men come up to us saying, "Oh, tannery this way." This way?

3:35 My friend.

3:36 Oh, it's good.

3:38 It's a hotel.

3:38 Thank you.

3:40 My friend, this way to city center.

3:41 Oh, so at this point, he is going to help you.

3:43 It's just he's going to pay he's going to ask for pay at the end.

3:46 No, this way.

3:47 This way.

3:48 That way?

3:48 The what's it?

3:49 Oh, no, thank you then.

3:51 Which name to the place you're looking at?

3:53 Oh, it's all right.

3:56 The Oh, we already went to the Medina.

3:57 Thank you.

4:00 It's all right.

4:00 We're there.

4:02 Tannery's not that way.

4:03 Not at all.

4:04 The the trick involves them basically getting

4:05 you to go the wrong way, get confused,

4:07 they guide you to either a shop in which they then

4:10 pressure you to give you their money for some some type

4:12 of item or for guiding you or basically it's like

4:15 a my friend Kim called it a delayed mugging more than a scam.

4:19 Sadly, this is quite a widespread issue in Fez and also in Marrakech.

4:24 Scrolling through the travel subreddit as well as the Morocco one will lead you

4:28 to many many stories of tourists being scammed or feeling harassed in some way.

4:32 One of the weirdest things I noticed when we were driving throughout the country

4:35 of Morocco was just how strong the police

4:37 presence was on pretty much every country road.

4:40 There were speed traps everywhere.

4:41 [music] And sure, it might be easier for the cops to catch drivers breaking

4:44 the law and then charge them fines compared

4:47 to catching the criminals within these labyrinthian Medinas.

4:50 The extortion these scammers enact on tourists is very much illegal in Morocco.

4:54 But the thing is, that's not how the scam starts.

4:56 Saying, "This way to Medina" or "Hotel this way" isn't exactly breaking any

5:01 law even if it does inevitably end with the tourist having a delayed mugging.

5:06 The cops can't really prove that's where they were going.

5:08 Maybe this was just a helpful person.

5:13 This is what makes it such a difficult issue to police.

5:16 From my research, the only times I can

5:18 see Moroccan police arresting [music] these criminals is

5:20 when a video goes viral of a tourist

5:23 getting scammed by some of these fake guides.

5:25 I posted a video about a man

5:27 and his daughter who pretended to be hospitable and said

5:29 he was [music] walking in the same direction

5:30 as me and showed me around for an hour.

5:32 But at the end, the man demanded 40 euros and told me to go to the ATM.

5:35 This video really blew up across social media

5:37 and eventually caught the attention of Moroccan authorities.

5:40 So, the authorities tracked that man down based

5:42 on this two-second clip of his face from my video.

5:44 The police arrested that man and he's now facing prosecution for fraud,

5:47 extortion and being a fake guide cuz he needs to have

5:50 a government Alongside hiding plainclothes police

5:52 officers in some [music] tourist spaces, the main strategy the police put

5:55 in place to prevent this involves licensed guides.

5:58 Official guides must be licensed, badged and approved [music] by authorities.

6:03 And in theory, this sounds like a much easier way to spot a random

6:06 person taking a tourist around if he doesn't have a badge on him.

6:09 But [music] in a city as dense and labyrinthian as Fez,

6:12 it's still an uphill battle.

6:19 And it's such a shame because Morocco is truly such a beautiful

6:22 country with so much to see beyond these standard [music] tourist hotspots.

6:26 And truth be told, the one time we literally nearly got caught out

6:29 there was the one time we were actually exploring without our licensed guide.

6:33 Our guide [music] Adi took us to explore

6:35 the beaches of Casablanca with its iconic mosque,

6:38 the ancient Roman ruins of Volubilis still standing there today,

6:41 city after city [music] after city in Morocco and he gave us some

6:45 experiences exploring the Sahara Desert that I don't think I will ever forget.

6:52 What made this feel so different is that Adi wasn't

6:54 just taking us from one tourist stop to the [music] next.

6:57 He comes from a Berber tribe himself.

6:59 So, a lot of what he showed us wasn't just the tourist sites,

7:01 [music] it was his culture.

7:03 It meant the trip felt far less like

7:05 we were just being shown a version of Morocco

7:07 made for tourists or just [music] being taken

7:09 to the places where the drivers get the biggest kickback.

7:12 Instead, it was more like we were getting to experience [music] something real,

7:15 which is getting more rare when traveling these days.

7:18 And after nearly getting scammed in Fez,

7:19 this sort of thing matters even more because the difference between

7:22 someone earnestly showing you their culture

7:24 and guiding you genuinely and someone,

7:27 you know, taking you around to other places with ulterior motives in mind

7:31 can be a lot harder to spot in a place you're unfamiliar with.

7:35 [music] And I am concerned that this video might come off like,

7:42 "Don't visit Fez" which [music] I don't want it to be because Fez is

7:45 one of the most fascinatingly designed cities

7:47 I've ever gotten the chance to visit.

7:49 It's just a bit rough inside [music] the edges like many cities.

7:52 Hopefully at some point,

7:53 I finally get around to uploading the rest of my travels in Morocco

7:56 on my travel channel [music] as there was so much more I really wanted to share.

7:59 I even found a fresh stroopwafel from a Dutch

8:02 immigrant while I was out in Marrakech.

8:03 It was [music] excellent.

8:05 But if you do get the chance to visit Morocco or you're looking for some advice,

8:08 I'll leave a link to our guide Adi in the description

8:10 as I'm sure he'd be happy to help you out.

8:12 And if you want to know where you can find my next video, it's this way.

8:17 Thanks for watching.

8:20 [music] [music] Stole it.

8:32 It's [music] donkey con, Heather.

8:33 Come on.