Huslters
Tangier has been notorious for its Hustlers since it became an international city. People will appear be friendly and then get money out of you in any way possible. This is mainly present in the Petit Socco, Medina and Kasbah. Also keep in mind do not answer any questions that can reveal how much money you have. Hustlers will talk to you and they do have the various smooth ways of figuring out if you are rich or not. They tried to figure out how much money we had by telling us how much a house in the Medina costs. Keep in mind the Medina is basically the poor part of the city. They said,"oh, one of these houses is very cheap like 1 million Euro”. Both of us told him that’s was steep and we would rather live somewhere else if we had that much money. When talking to my local friend Ali later he was so surprised that they tried to pull this one on us because the nicer of the houses in the Medina(which is the poor part of the city) goes for less than a 1/10th of that. The most common form of hustler is found at the port targeting tourists as soon as they get off the ship. They will pose as the "tour" guides in the white robes. Also keep in mind there are “tour guides” which are also hustlers and have rings setup of tourist shops which are “There brother’s or cousins shop”. This a lot of the time is hard to believe because the hustler who showed us around must have had 10 brothers with shops and that only had white people shopping in them. Keep in mind hustling is illegal by the Moroccan police. If they give you any serious problems keep in mind you don’t need to pay them. You have the upper hand. They won’t attack you but they might start yelling and causing a scene. Just tell them "no thank you" and if they continue to cause a scene threaten to get the police. If you want, give them 20 Dirham (about $2.40) and that will silence them and sometimes turn them into your friend. Sometimes it’s worth it considering how much money we give to the homeless in American cities. A lot of these hustlers made their whole life doing this. Some have had a career that is 30 years of experience. You will even get 5 year olds trying to do this to you in the Medina. The police are keen on this and do try to crack down but the hustlers move spots every 24 hours. At the end of the day just don't act scared or worried. That is what gets people into situations where they get hustled. Morocco is a safe country, Tangier alone a city of nearly 1 million had only 2 murders in one year according to locals. Both were involving family disputes. If needed we suggest asking a hotel to suggest a legit tour guide. If in need of an English translator please contact us on the about page we can suggest some locals to contact for that service.