How Did Sisi Build a Smuggling Machine Abroad?

A private plane that was seized by the Zambian authorities on August 15, 2023, after it landed in Lusaka with six Egyptians and a large amount of cash and gold, has been linked to several official visits by Egyptian security officials to other countries in the region.

The plane, a Bombardier Global Express with the registration number T7-WSS, is registered in the Republic of San Marino and has a white, blue, and gray color scheme.

It was carrying $5,698,000 in bags and boxes, as well as 602 pieces of gold-coated metal weighing about 127 kilograms, which the Zambian authorities later said were fake ingots made of a mixture of different metals.

Tracking the movements of the plane over the past months using open sources and aircraft tracking sites reveals that it had visited several airports in Egypt, as well as Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, and Libya.

By matching the plane’s movements with pictures and news published by local newspapers, sources revealed that it had coincided with the presence of high-level Egyptian personalities on more than one occasion.

 

Official Usage

The most notable example was the visit of the Egyptian Interior Minister Mahmoud Tawfiq to Tunisia in February 2023, where he led a high-level Egyptian security delegation to participate in the 40th session of the Council of Arab Interior Ministers.

A picture published by the official page of the Ministry of Interior showed the same plane at Carthage International Airport in Tunisia, with its registration number clearly visible on the tail.

Another example was the arrival of the plane from Cairo to Jeddah airport on May 13, 2023, and its departure from Riyadh to Cairo on May 16, 2023, hours before the start of the meeting of Arab foreign ministers, which was attended by a representative delegation from Egypt.

Four days later, on May 17, 2023, the plane flew from Cairo to Tripoli, coinciding with the arrival of an Egyptian security delegation and officials from Egyptian intelligence to meet with Libyan Prime Minister Abdul Hamid Dbeibeh.

Egyptian website Saheeh Masr could not confirm whether the security agencies were responsible for taking out the shipments on board the plane to Zambia or whether they had any connection with the plane’s owner, who is listed as “secret” on aircraft tracking sites.

The news outlet also raised questions about the origin and purpose of the ingots and bullion that were seized by the Zambian authorities.

 

Stepping Back

The Zambian government has launched an investigation into the origin and destination of the fake gold bars, which weighed about 2.8 tons and were valued at $110 million.

But according to Zambian authorities, the gold bars that were seized from a plane bound for Dubai were not genuine but rather a mixture of metals with a thin layer of gold.

The analysis revealed that the bars contained about 61% copper, 38% zinc, and traces of tin and nickel.

A source from the Precious Metals and Jewelry Division at the Chamber of Commerce in Egypt, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Saheeh Masr that the production of such fake bars was an illegal act of commercial fraud.

He explained that copper and other metals have a much lower value than gold and that authentic gold bars are marked with stamps from the manufacturers and the countries of origin. However, the bars that were confiscated had no such stamps.

The source also said that the gold coating on the bars was done by electroplating, a process that uses electric current to deposit a thin layer of metal on another metal. He added that this technique was easy to detect by experts and that the bars would not pass any standard quality test.

 

Official Denial

The Egyptian authorities have denied any connection to the plane, despite evidence that it was used for official visits by Egyptian officials in the past.

The plane, registered as T7-WSS, belongs to a company based in the United Arab Emirates, according to public records. However, a photo taken in April 2022 shows two men posing next to the same plane at Cairo Airport. They are Ibrahim al-Arjani and his son Essam al-Arjani, both influential figures in Egypt’s security and economic sectors.

Essam al-Arjani obtained a commercial pilot license in October 2022, according to online sources. His father, Ibrahim al-Arjani, is a native of North Sinai Governorate, a region plagued by insurgency and violence since the military coup of July 3, 2013.

He has met with President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi several times and was appointed by him as a member of the board of directors of the National Authority for the Development of the Sinai Peninsula in January 2022.

Al-Arjani is also known for his involvement in security operations in Sinai, where he formed local armed militias that assisted the army forces in fighting the militants.

However, these militias have also been accused of committing human rights violations, such as torture and extrajudicial killings, by several organizations.

In addition to his security role, al-Arjani has emerged as one of the economic faces of the intelligence service, and owns a group of companies under the umbrella of Al-Arjani Group.

These companies include: Abnaa Sinai company (which participated in Gaza reconstruction projects), Misr Sinai For Industrial Development and Investment (which partnered with Global Auto for Cars), and Al-Arjani Group (which became the new sponsor of Al-Ahly Club, one of Egypt’s most popular football teams, during the 2023 Club World Cup).

 

Non-Official Smugglers

The incident suggests that the smugglers operate in a crude and non-institutional manner, according to Saad al-Saka, an Egyptian activist and journalist.

In his interview with Al-Estiklal, al-Saka said that some activists documented 356 secret companies inside Egypt that own offshore accounts and shell companies that are used to launder and smuggle money.

Al-Saka said that money smuggling is inherent to the nature of the military regimes that govern Egypt, and called for an international investigation into the case.

“The money could be recovered if Sisi’s regime falls, with the cooperation of the United States. Other than that, he is immune,” al-Saka said.

Al-Saka questioned whether Egypt had become a hub for money laundering, replacing the United Arab Emirates, which had started to curb this phenomenon.

“There was a recent decision by the Egyptian authorities to exempt gold imported by travelers from customs duties for six months. Since the decision was issued, about 600 kilograms of gold entered Egypt, but the price of gold did not decrease in the local market. This could indicate the existence of a smuggling machine,” al-Saka noted.

“Sisi’s regime is bankrupting Egypt, not the other way around. Egypt has enough resources and potential to overcome its economic crisis if it is governed by a democratic and transparent system,” he concluded.