In Algeria, Illegal Money-Changers Thrive

Across the street from the parliament, courthouse, and main police station in Algiers is Algeria’s biggest illegal foreign exchange market. “Currency, currency!” Nadir, 28, shouts to passing cars from the curb of Port Said Square in the capital city. He won’t give his full name, since what he does is against the law. Nadir is one of dozens of money-changers milling around the gardens of the sun-baked esplanade, chatting on mobile phones and counting crisp dinar notes. The last week of September, the going rate was a record 150 dinars per euro, almost 40 percent higher than the official price.

Underlying the increased demand for black market money is concern that the region’s political upheaval may reach Algiers. Revolts in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya have revived memories of Algeria’s own civil war in the 1990s. The government of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has ramped up spending on housing subsidies and civil servants’ wages to ward off unrest. Those measures helped drive inflation to a 15-year high of 9 percent in 2012.