Amal Wagih Saleh, a woman aged 57, lived with her small family in a modest apartment under the old-rent system in the Fayda Kamel area of Maadi. The apartment had witnessed the family’s joys and crises.
As her children looked to improve their standard of living, her son decided to look for an apartment to own that would guarantee the family greater stability. A real estate office offered an apartment in a new building under construction in the Arab El-Maadi area, and the offer seemed an ideal opportunity. Amal paid the first sum, EGP 65,000, in 2017, after borrowing and pooling her savings. She signed the contract with great hopes, but she was shocked when she visited the apartment to discover that it had been sold to several other people.
Amal says: “When I tried to recover my money, I faced threats from the seller, who enlisted his relatives to put pressure on us. I was not the only one harmed; there are others who filed similar complaints. Later, I learned that his maternal uncle is a lawyer, and he was intervening on his behalf in the cases.”
Amal now lives with her unmarried daughter, while her married son moved to the El-Marg area. She continues: “When I tried to have the validity of the contract signature confirmed in court, I could not pay the lawyer’s fees. Nine years have passed, and the money I paid is no longer enough even to buy a room, when the price of the apartment at the time was EGP 150,000. Today, the perpetrator has been sentenced to nine years in prison, of which he has served five, but no one has told us anything about the fate of our money.”
In this report, Zawia3 relied on a survey that included 100 citizens carefully selected to represent the affected groups, in addition to an analysis of a database compiled from newspaper archives over the past six months. The report reveals the suffering of many citizens as a result of the delay in deciding legal cases relating to fraudsters, amid the absence of sufficient legislation guaranteeing the effective protection of rights, which opens the door to questions about the role of the legal system in delivering justice to victims.
New Methods of Fraud
Amal is only one of hundreds of victims who have fallen prey to various fraud operations in Egypt, whether online or through direct personal relationships. In a report conducted by “Zawia3”, the results of a survey that lasted a month were analysed; it included 100 participants from private groups on the “Facebook” and “WhatsApp” applications that bring together individuals who have been swindled. The survey aimed to uncover the methods of fraud, the extent of their spread, and the reasons for the weak reporting of them.
The results showed that 60% of participants did not report the fraud incidents they had been subjected to, while only 30% reported them, and 10% chose not to take any action. As for the types of fraud, they included online fraud (36%), financial fraud (32%), and the purchase of fake products or services (24%), while real estate fraud recorded a rate of 4%, consisting of the sale of fictitious apartments or land.
When reviewing the reasons for falling victim to fraud, 34% of participants said the reason was haste and lack of time, 25% pointed to not verifying the source, while 22% stated that weak awareness of protection mechanisms was the main factor. Likewise, 11% considered the fraudster’s emotional exploitation to be the direct cause.
As for the impact of fraud, 43% stated that they incurred major financial losses, while 39% affirmed that they suffered serious psychological and social harm. As for the reasons for not reporting, 42.9% attributed this to a loss of confidence in recovering their rights, while 29.9% considered the matter unimportant, and 19.5% did not know the appropriate authority to report to.
The survey also showed the participants’ assessment of the government’s role in combating fraud: 45% believe that the authorities are completely absent from protecting citizens, while 43% believe there is a limited role, and 12% acknowledged the existence of an effective role. In addition, 75% of participants indicated that the length of judicial procedures contributed to the spread of fraud operations and to the perpetrators’ escape from punishment.
Swindling Cases
Gamal Mahmoud, a lawyer before the High Court of Appeal and the State Council, tells “Zawia3” that the delay of fraud cases in reaching the court is often due to the need to complete essential documents, such as the police investigations into the incident to confirm its veracity. He explains that this delay varies according to the circumstances of each case, but it remains a main reason for the prolongation of litigation.
Mahmoud points out that Egyptian law confronts fraud crimes firmly, in accordance with Article 336 of the Penal Code, which punishes perpetrators of fraud with imprisonment, with the possibility of placing the defendant under police supervision for a period of up to two years if the crime is repeated. He also affirms that Egyptian legislation keeps pace with developments in crime, particularly online fraud, which the Anti-Cybercrime Law has tackled effectively.
On the impact of the new judicial system, Mahmoud says: “The introduction of the Ministry of Justice’s unified digital system and the linking of the courts through an integrated digital infrastructure have reduced the time gap between criminal and civil cases, but challenges remain in enforcing rulings, especially with crimes whose perpetrators are skilled at hiding from the authorities.”
The lawyer advises citizens to exercise caution when dealing with untrustworthy entities or persons. He says: “Before signing any contract, it must be shown to a specialised lawyer to guarantee rights. In the event of being defrauded, it is essential to go immediately to the police station to file an official report, submitting all supporting documents, and to follow up the report with the Public Prosecution to ensure that the case is referred to court.”
Victims of Online Fraud
A number of citizens who had been subjected to online fraud crimes recounted their stories, expressing their suffering after losing savings they had accumulated over years because of tightly crafted digital deception. Among them are a young man who dreamed of starting a married life and a mother who lost the security of her children’s future, in stories that highlight the human pain resulting from these growing crimes.
One of these victims, Amr Asaad, a 28-year-old young man from Damietta Governorate, lost his savings of EGP 350,000. The tragedy began when he received a message via the WhatsApp application inviting him to join a digital platform called “Ali Express 202”, which promises participants financial profits in exchange for clicking likes on social media sites. The platform sent him small returns at first to build credibility, but he soon fell into the trap of increasing financial demands under various pretexts, the last of which was sending large sums on the pretext of “unfreezing the balance”.
Although Amr submitted an official report to the Damietta police station and the Internet Investigations Department, he faced difficulty recovering his rights because of the lengthy bureaucratic procedures, as the perpetrators, who used tight concealment methods to avoid legal prosecution, were not traced. Amr expresses his sense of helplessness, saying: “The system followed for reports is extremely slow; between one step and the next, the swindlers disappear and the money with them. They exploited me and stole my life savings.”
On another note, Amir Mahmoud, a baker from the village of Shiblanga in Banha district, recounts the details of his suffering after being subjected to a similar fraud operation. Amir paid EGP 56,000 to a person named Mohamed Samir, who runs an office under the name “Al-Hayat Company”, in exchange for a promise to provide a work contract in Saudi Arabia within a month. The postponements continued for nearly four months, only for him to discover in the end that the person had been jailed on charges of defrauding others. After his release on bail, Mohamed Samir disappeared along with the victims’ money and papers, which left Amir and the other affected people without clear solutions for recovering their rights.
Supporting the Victims
“Zawia3” conducted an interview with Mohamed El-Yamani, chairman of the board of trustees of the “Qawem” foundation, to talk about the foundation’s efforts in confronting online swindling crimes. El-Yamani explained that the foundation was established with the aim of combating cybercrime, and with the escalation of the phenomenon at the beginning of this year, the foundation launched the “Catch a Swindler” platform to document online swindling crimes and to raise citizens’ awareness of fraudsters’ methods and of how to protect themselves from them.
El-Yamani pointed out that “Qawem” provides legal and psychological support to victims through specialised teams that work on gathering evidence, filing police reports and following up cases with the competent authorities. The foundation also provides experts in psychological and social support to help victims, especially young people, who may suffer severe psychological effects that go as far as thoughts of suicide.
Regarding the difficulties, El-Yamani explained that the courts’ delay in issuing rulings represents a major challenge, which pushes the foundation to turn to higher authorities to speed up procedures by submitting electronic requests and following up investigations. He added that the absence of effective mechanisms for arresting criminals and enforcing rulings further complicates the cases, especially with the use of phone lines registered under fictitious names, which makes tracking down the perpetrators more difficult.
El-Yamani affirmed that “Qawem” works in cooperation with a specialised legal team and volunteer lawyers to provide legal advice, in addition to submitting legislative proposals aimed at toughening penalties and speeding up trial procedures. He stressed the importance of updating customer data at telecommunications companies to ensure that the identity of the actual user matches the registered data, as an essential step in confronting these crimes.
El-Yamani concluded by pointing out that online swindling crimes do not only affect individual victims, but represent a wider threat to the security of society, which calls for the concerted efforts of all parties to limit their spread.
The Egyptian Penal Code, issued as No. 58 of 1937 and amended by Law No. 189 of 2020, confronts swindling crimes with penalties reaching imprisonment for a period of up to two years, and the law devoted an entire chapter, titled “Swindling and Breach of Trust”, to dealing with such crimes. Article (336) stipulates that anyone who seizes money, movable property, financial bonds, discharge documents or other movable property shall be punished with imprisonment, where this is done by way of fraud and the seizure of all or part of the money of others, whether by using deceptive methods to make people believe in the existence of a false project or a forged incident, or by creating a false hope of achieving an illusory profit, or on the pretext of repaying a certain sum obtained by fraud, or by making people believe in the existence of an invalid debt bond or a forged discharge document; this also includes disposing of immovable or movable property that is not owned by the perpetrator or that he has no right to dispose of, or using a false name or an untrue capacity. As for anyone who attempted swindling but did not complete it, he shall be punished with imprisonment for a period not exceeding one year. The law allows the perpetrator, in the case of recidivism, to be placed under police supervision for a period ranging between one year and two years.”
The law clearly differentiated between the different types of crimes, as “felonies” are classified as crimes punishable by severe penalties such as death, life imprisonment, aggravated imprisonment or imprisonment, while “misdemeanours” are classified as crimes punishable by penalties of imprisonment and a fine whose maximum exceeds one hundred pounds (EGP 100), whereas “contraventions” are crimes punishable by a fine whose maximum does not exceed one hundred pounds (EGP 100).
Although there are legal texts that may represent protection for citizens against the fraud and swindling operations that, according to their testimonies, have become widespread, the citizens who took part in Zawia3’s survey believe that the slackening of the security grip and the length of judicial proceedings have led, in the end, to their not obtaining their rights, and to an increase in fraud operations in their various forms.
Editorial correction: The first version of the report stated that the rate of fraud in purchasing fake products or services was 23%; the correct figure is 24%, according to the survey data published in the attached chart.
