Secret treasury: Plan to revive Brotherhood’s activity in Egypt revealed

Doaa Emam

The Egyptian security forces spare no effort in unveiling the Brotherhood’s black economy and thwarting attempts to revive the group through its arms responsible for the flow of money to its leaders. On Thursday, September 30, Egypt’s Ministry of the Interior announced the seizure of a residential apartment owned by Brotherhood member Yahya Mahran in a suburb of Giza Governorate, containing a secret room used as a safe for money.

According to a statement by the Ministry of Interior, preliminary investigations revealed that Mahran played a prominent role in that scheme as one of the main arms of imprisoned Brotherhood leader Safwan Thabet, as the latter assigned him to exploit his companies in transfers and concealment of the organization’s funds and to invest its returns for the benefit of the terrorist group’s activities, in an attempt to circumvent the legal restraint procedures taken against the economic entities owned by the organization.

After the arrest procedures and the raid of the aforementioned apartment, the accused was charged with several crimes related to committing crimes to disturb the security of the country and undermine its economic foundations, in addition to agreeing with Brotherhood leaders who fled abroad to hold several meetings during which they agreed to develop a plan to find ways and alternatives to preserve the organization’s sources of financing within the framework of a scheme aimed at harming the national economy of the country by accumulating foreign currencies, smuggling them outside the country and working to escalate the instability of the dollar exchange rate in order to abort the efforts made by the state to achieve economic stability.

Mahran faces several charges, including joining the terrorist Brotherhood and providing it with funds to achieve its goal of changing the regime by force, attacking the armed forces, police and public facilities, harming the country’s national economy, and financing its activities with millions of pounds by pumping money into the accounts of the group’s leaders, in addition to providing in-kind aid worth millions of pounds.

In turn, Amr Farouk, a researcher in the affairs of Islamist movements, said that the involvement of businessmen affiliated with the Brotherhood in pumping funds to support the terrorist group’s organizational bases and its project to target the army and police forces comes in implementation of the theory of responding to aggression developed by late Brotherhood theorist Sayyid Qutb, which legitimizes the demolition of state institutions.

In a statement to the Reference, Farouk pointed out that the files related to hidden sources of funding began to unfold before the Egyptian security authorities since the arrest of Brotherhood leader Mahmoud Ezzat last August, especially since he was the actual controller of the organization’s financial and administrative joints.

Farouk added that companies are the most important pillars that the Brotherhood relies on to finance their suspicious activities. According to the book “The Economics of the Brotherhood in Egypt and the World”, the profits of internal projects in Egypt, especially the fields of trade, exchange, schools and hospitals, aid and assistance from associations in some countries and international associations, and the profits of projects abroad, including trade, banks and the stock market, are the most important components of the group’s financing.