French Civil Aviation authorities in Paris and the Egyptian Bureau of Investigations have uncovered an elaborate fake shipping syndicate, exposing a network of fraudulent operations.
With this latest incident, a report was received from the French Civil Aviation authorities to the Egyptian Bureau of Investigations regarding a suspicious shipment 40 pallets, 160 boxes weighing 43600kg that was to be shipped to an African country.
The shipment is shown here:
This shipment was moved to one of the border crossings in an African country after the product name mentioned in the documents was changed from aluminium powder to furniture which raised alarm.
This was after a request by the French aviation authorities for the Egyptian Civil Aviation to provide a document declaring whether this shipment contained radioactive materials or explosive materials.
This shipment mentioned above was supposed to be shipped to the Arab Republic of Egypt.
It is against this background, that threads of doubt began building up among the French authorities.
Per investigations, it was discovered that the shipment had crossed the borders of an African country to a nearby neighbouring country through one of the border crossings.
The (I-C) shipment was stopped and seized because it almost crossed without proper security screening of the shipment.
The information received from the French authorities was verified, and it was discovered that the shipment was shipped from the city of [A-G] in Africa to an African country (I-C) to be shipped later to Egypt.
It was also discovered that the shipping company that was responsible for shipping was verified and found that the owner of the company is of Arab descent (S-A).
The persons responsible for shipping the shipment were identified as namely the director and owner of the shipping company (S-A) in addition to the owner of the shipment as stated in the documents (S-Sh).
The director of the shipping company (S-A) was arrested by order of the Director of National Security to investigate the shipment, and a bail of $100,000 US dollars was later paid to release him from detention.
Upon investigation by the Public Prosecution, he admitted that he was not aware of the contents of the shipment other than what was stated in the supporting documents attached to the shipment.
Later, the shipment was fully inspected, but the whole shocker was that the boxes were completely empty, meaning that they did not contain the furniture mentioned in the report and the supporting documents for the shipment.
Recommendations:
All authorities must take the necessary measures to prevent the shipment of suspicious shipments and enhance cooperation with all countries to prevent such suspicious shipments.
The identity of those responsible for shipping such suspicious shipments must also be identified and their responsibility determined
