Madar (Algiers) - The prosecutor general at the Algiers Court Council has ordered the judicial police of Algeria's various security services to open urgent investigations to identify people who dumped widely consumed foodstuffs from trucks in order to create shortages on the market and speculate on prices, and to expose the networks behind them, according to a statement from the prosecutor's office carried by the official APS news agency on Thursday, October 22, 2026.
According to the TSA news site, which quoted the statement, the move follows videos circulated on social media showing people on trucks dumping food and vegetables fit for consumption in places outside urban areas. The investigations are being supervised by the National Pole for Combating Organised Crime.
They aim to identify anyone who took part in, incited, financed or profited from these acts, whatever their status or position, and to trace the movement of goods and the storage and distribution networks involved. Those implicated will be referred to the competent courts, the same source said.
On the same day, Prime Minister Sifi Ghrieb chaired an inter-ministerial council on the marketing of red meat, attended by the secretary general of the General Union of Algerian Traders and Craftsmen and representatives of the red-meat federation, in line with President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's instructions to regulate the prices of widely consumed goods, the prime minister's office said.
Domestic Trade Minister Amel Abdellatif told the finance committee of the National People's Assembly that her ministry was drafting regulations to oversee sales intermediaries and cap profit margins, alongside a shared digital price database and an early-warning mechanism for unusual price rises, APS reported.
At a Council of Ministers meeting on Sunday, October 18, President Tebboune had ordered investigations into fraudulent practices and speculation surrounding the marketing of imported meat. The prosecutor's statement did not say where the videos were filmed or whether anyone had been arrested.
