Problem at Ceuta- vehicle exit document???

[hurcomb]

Has anyone else had the same experience at a Maroccan border? This was at ceuta 4 days ago.

cleared immigration quickly as they had all my details from a previous trip. Nice.

Customs next.

The chap noticed that 2 years ago i bought a 1981 golf into the country (plymouth daker rally) and wanted to see the white paper that would have (should have) been stamped as we exited to Mauri. Naturally i didn,t have this, so was immediately refeerred the the chief. who, upon learning i didn,t have the white paper dismissed me.

to cut a long story short, a 5 hour ordeal in fact, i persueded the chief that i had not sold the golf in Maroc and will not sell the XT600 that i have been getting battle ready for the last 6 months. He stamped my papers.

Question:
Is this because i didnt get everything in place when i exited last time into Mauri, so on thier computer the car is still showing as in the country, or is one expected to always keep the white vehicle import paper?

excuse the spelling.

[Tim Cullis]

I was involved in a very serious car accident in Morocco in the 1980s and after being detained by the police for three days awaiting an interview with an examining magistrate, I made my way back to Ceuta. The border was in chaos and the stamp in my passport showing I had re-exported the car wasn't made.

A couple of years later I was about to fly home from Marrakech after a package holiday when the fact the stamp was missing was noticed. My wife and kids were allowed to board, and the pilot of the plane was very understanding. He put pressure on the authorities by refusing to take off without his missing passenger but even then it took a couple of hours to get the problem resolved.

With the new system with bits of paper, yes, you should keep the white bit indefinitely.

Tim

[roamingyak]

The WS/Mori border is not linked via computer into the Moroccan customs/immigration databases - paperwork is in theory transported to Dahkla where they are entered onto the computer system. Immigration stuff is usually radioed through if you listen carefully when they take your passports away.

3 weeks after entering WS/Maroc from Mori I tried to get an extension for the landy and it caused a few problems as it hadn't been loaded onto the computer system - easily sorted out at Marrakech airport (even though not flying out)

So that is probably why. It's their problem not yours in theory.

[DesertSoul]

Something similar happened to me in 2000. Since I work in tourism, I entered Morocco through Ceuta with a group that was travelling in the same bus with the same drivers and me as a guide as did an other group in 1999. When the drivers wanted to clear the customs procedures for the bus, the officers realized "the bus that was about to enter Morocco actually never left the country after entering a year ago." The issue was the same notorious white paper. I remembered the date we had left Morocco, roughly even the time. So an officer took me to the archives and we checked all the white papers of the vehicles that left the country on that border crossing between 2 and 4 p.m. Didn't find ours. Since the vehicle was obviously there again, we managed to cross the border after some two hours delay and after they put guilt on somebody that had been neglecting his job a year ago.
With that experience, after visiting Morocco with my own car, took the white paper with me a couple of times when flying there, just in case. But everything was ok then.