The Fruit Cart Cartel: Egypt's 'Aristocrats Gang' and the $60 Million Kidnapping Plot Undone by a Burner Phone

In 2014, a wealthy factory owner named Mr. Kamal was kidnapped in Assiut by a notorious group known as the “Akaaber Gang.” The gang was led by two men, Sameh and Maged (real names Hamada and Nabil), who ran a highly organized and professional criminal network. They demanded a huge ransom for Kamal’s release, using multiple burner phones across different governorates to avoid detection and hiding their operations behind a fruit and vegetable distribution business that acted as a front. The breakthrough in the case came when investigators traced the ransom calls to Atef, a former employee of Kamal’s, which led police directly to the gang leaders. It was later revealed that Sameh and Maged were career criminals with a long history of murders and kidnappings, and that their sophisticated schemes had earned them over 100 million Egyptian pounds before their eventual arrest.