The Zambian Plane Mystery
Zambia is not stranger to mystery and intrigue.
Zambia is not stranger to mystery and intrigue. Zambia the country was born in 1964, situated between black and the then white-ruled regimes of southern Africa. In the late 60s and 70s, the country was home to mercenaries and secret agents from many nations. High-flying South African military planes conducted photographic sorties over its territory regularly. It was one of the crucial “chess pieces” during the Cold War’s African phase.
Fast forward to last week, when a mysterious high-speed corporate Bombardier was detained at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport by Zambia’s Drug Enforcement Commission. On the plane was found $5.6 million, 602 pieces of gold, five pistols, seven magazines, and over 100 rounds of ammunition. Not enough to overthrow an African government, but enough to give a President some sleepless nights. African gold definitely raises all sorts of red flags, not the least of which because the Wagner Group — among other criminal organizations operating on the Continent, like ISIS — regularly use it to evade international sanctions. And then there is the question of the passengers list, which included of the 14 taken into custody, a major in the Egyptian army, a police lieutenant and a shady Zambian moneyman (more on which, later), which only makes the story more curiouser ...
Where did this mysterious plane come from and to whence was it going? Is it just a gold scam gone wrong? A case of elite corruption? If so, why did the bombardier make so many flights to so many disparate countries? And what’s with all that ammunition? From Al Jazeera’s reporting:
When a mysterious plane was intercepted on August 14 in the Zambian capital, Lusaka, by local authorities, Karim Asaad, an investigative journalist working for an Egyptian fact-checking platform matsada2sh got to work.
What he found was a complex network of passengers on board a plane with a suspicious flight path that included recent stops in Dubai, UAE; Tel Aviv, Israel; Cairo, Egypt; and Benghazi and Tripoli, Libya.
Which brings us to the “freedom of the press” aspect of this already vexatious story. As Egyptian officials trip over each other jurisdictionally, attempting to erase the story altogether, they in fact have became the headline. Assaad, co-founder of Matsda2sh (“Don’t Believe”), a fact-checking news outlet, published the names of Egyptian nationals on the plane. So the backlash, to be sure, was pretty severe and swift. From The People’s Dispatch:
According to reports and statements from Assaad’s wife, ten armed and uniformed security officers, along with several others in plain clothes, stormed into the journalist’s home in al-Shorouk, a satellite city in the eastern part of the Egyptian capital Cairo around 1.30 am on Saturday morning while the couple along with their son were sleeping. The officers proceeded to verbally abuse and manhandle Assaad and his wife, and threatened to harm their son. They confiscated a number of valuable items from the journalist’s house, such as mobile phones, a laptop, a personal computer, jewelry, and around 8,000 Egyptian pounds in cash. The officers also forced Assaad to give them access to the news outlet’s account and deleted the two articles which disclosed the identities of the Egyptian officials on the plane. Additionally, Egyptian authorities reportedly targeted a number of the site’s employees and its website was attacked and breached.
Assaad’s social media colleague at madsada2ish was detained as well. Which precipitated for calls in the West for Freedom of the Press. “They were the latest of at least 200 journalists to be arrested under the decade-long rule of President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, whose government and security services own or control most of the Egyptian press,” Lynsey Chutel and Vivian Yee of the New York Times noted today.
Bigger question: Who is behind this? That flight path is really and truly sketch. And — purely speculation on my part — could Egyptian security forces be funneling money to like-minded forces within the borders of its unstable neighbor, Libya, perhaps with assistance from multiple sources — governments; more moneymen — scattered around the Middle East? The involvement of Tel Aviv is an interesting, though unsurprising, mention that could support such speculation.
The UAE is a not-so-secret player in Africa, for sure. The UAE, for example, has provided the financial logistics, gold trade infrastructure that the Wagner Group has needed to launder Sudanese gold. And of course, if this (or something like this) is what is going on, it is something that clearly the Egyptian security forces — as well as Israel and the UAE — would not want to become public knowledge, which would explain the overreact.
Finally, there is the question of the money and gold. The gold was not pure and neither was the provider. “The Zambian officials said the gold was, in fact, fake — made of copper and zinc, probably in order to fleece foreign buyers,” Chutel and Yee write. Shady Zambian “businessman” Shadreck Kasanda, was on the plane as well and he is known as “Mr. Gold.” He also likes to “make it rain,” around Zambia, so to speak. And he is wanted in China for — of all charges — skullduggery (see below). Also detained in the raid, a Dutch national and a Spanish national …
Could it be just a simple gold scam gone awry? Or is it the something more nefarious that I speculated upon? This story is still far from being solved …
And anyone who knows me know that I am obsessed with unsolved mysteries. More on this in the coming days and weeks …
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Fascinating, let's write the movie.