Egyptian Engineer Mohamed Ahmed, 40, was on annual leave abroad with his family in July 2021 when he received an email from an official in the administration of his 7-year-old son's school, informing him of the need to "communicate immediately for an urgent and important matter."
In remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat, the man said he was surprised by the urgency of the message, especially as his son was with him on his vacation. When he contacted the school administration, the official told him that they had received warning letters accompanied by a picture of his son that included “accusations and abuse against the family and the child, as well as extremely serious health allegations against them,” which usually cause stigma in Arab societies.
Between the Arab country, where engineer Mohamed Ahmed works (and still does), and his birthplace in Egypt (from where it was later proven that those messages were issued, and the judicial authorities accused a woman of being behind them), the man lived through episodes of cross-border crimes, including “death threats, financial blackmail, defamation, insults and slander”, which took him nearly 10 years to prove.
But the man is not a single case. Asharq Al-Awsat investigated similar crimes and documented them by interviewing the victims, reviewing official investigations, attending trials, hearing the testimonies of activists and verifying incidents that took place in more than 5 countries, most of them in the Arab region, as well as victims from other Arab countries who later declined to participate in the investigation, for fear of stigma, despite their initial approval.
The investigation reveals that the perpetrators relied on “being outside the borders of the country” where the crime took place, using “long electronic arms,” and taking advantage of “the difficulty of prosecution.”
"The investigation reveals that the perpetrators relied on being outside the borders of the country where the crime took place, using long electronic arms, and taking advantage of the difficulty of prosecution."
The investigation also shows exploitation of a loophole represented by “the absence of a specialized regional executive entity (Arab at least), for the effective deterrence, prosecution, and exchange of information in transnational cyber-extortion crimes,” according to activists and officials in several countries, despite the presence of an “Arab Convention to Combat Information Technology Crimes” dating back to 2010, ratified by 11 countries.
Eng. Ahmed was “shocked” that the blackmail he was subjected to since 2013 extended to his son. His problem began about a decade ago when he received extensive calls from relatives and friends stating that they had received messages (via Facebook) containing “insults, slander, and defamation” related to his person. He recalls: “My acquaintances were embarrassed to inform me of the messages because of the low quality and ugly language.”
The man was an “ideal victim,” as he put it, and says that the perpetrator “took advantage on my residence outside the country, as well as my inability to easily prove that a crime had been committed against me, and that at a time (late 2013) the issue of prosecuting information technology crimes was not common.” He adds sadly: “I remember that I used to receive 50 to 60 calls or messages daily informing me that my acquaintances had received these heinous abuses.”
In 2002, Egypt established a department affiliated with the Ministry of the Interior to “combat computer crimes,” but it continued to operate in a semi-centralized manner in the capital. Then, it expanded over time through regional offices that serve geographical areas covering more than one governorate. In April 2021, the Interior Ministry announced that citizens were now able to submit reports regarding cybercrimes to all security directorates in any Egyptian governorate.
For nearly 7 years, and during most of his annual vacations in Egypt, Eng. Ahmed was trying to write a report against the account that was accusing him of insults, but did not succeed “because of his presence outside the country,” as he put it, and his inability for years to quickly and urgently prove the crime had occurred. (Asharq Al-Awsat refrains from explaining the technical details used to prove the crime that the writer of the investigation reviewed in detail, in order to avoid illegal re-exploitation.)
The accused is outside our borders!
The issue of threatening the engineer’s son was central to his move in pursuing the woman accused of blackmailing him. Especially after the school administration informed him that it had notified the police of the Arab country in which it is located of the letters it had received. The officials informed the father (after his return from his vacation) that they had verified that the letters received by the school were from “outside their borders,” and therefore “they would not be able to take additional steps,” as he said.
Later, the “blackmailer” escalated her attack, “asking for money”, according to the official indictment against her, and broadcast the offensive content to the parents of the son’s classmates at school, further exacerbating his “harsh” experience, as he describes it.
As the pressures grew, the man was forced, as he told Asharq Al-Awsat, to take emergency leave from work for days and incur “large financial costs” to come to Egypt more than once to fulfill “a number of technical and legal requirements necessary to prove the crime” and file a lawsuit against the perpetrator.
Before the court
Inside the Mansoura Criminal Court in Dakahlia Governorate (135 kilometers north of Cairo), Asharq Al-Awsat attended the trial session of the accused in the case of engineer Mohamed Ahmed, where investigations indicated that the woman “used defamation and blackmail with more than 10 other victims inside and outside Egypt,” in addition to Engineer Ahmed.
At the end of one of the sessions that the accused attended after her arrest, Lawyer Ahmed Al-Bakri, who is the legal attorney of engineer Ahmed, spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat, saying that the “pattern of that crime was innovative, because the perpetrator did not have special images or shameful facts, but only relied on information provided by social media sites, tracked the victim’s accounts and acquaintances, and focused on expanding the scope of defamation by messaging them.”
Based on this blackmailing case, which took place between two countries, Al-Bakri believes that there is a practical need to task the embassies with submitting complaints and reports related to electronic crimes, if the perpetrator had the same nationality of the victim, even if the latter resided in a different country.
If this proposal has merit...what about the cases in which the victim holds the nationality of one country and resides in it, while the perpetrator has a different nationality and residence?
Baghdad and Damascus... and between them, Berlin
Between three elements was the case of the Iraqi woman Shams (her nickname). Her blackmailer holds “Syrian nationality” and resides in “Germany,” according to what he told her, while she lives in one of the governorates of Iraq.
Mrs. Shams (32), a divorced mother of five children, spoke to Asharq Al-Awsat on condition of anonymity for fear that she would be exposed to danger.
She said: “Like everyone, I have accounts on social media, and through them, in early 2021, I met a person who told me that he was a Syrian refugee residing in Germany. Over time, the conversation between us developed and he proposed to marry and come to Iraq to get engaged and take responsibility for my children.”
She added: “I decided to talk to him and we got to know each other.” In a very low voice, which forced her to record her message twice, Mrs. Shams spoke, justifying the matter by saying that she feared being heard by a member of her family, whom she described as “extremist” and who resides with her due to her separation from her husband.
Over time, “his (the blackmailer’s) intentions began to appear, but he did not blackmail me financially, but rather with my private photos to force me to do what he wanted, otherwise he threatened to publish these photos,” the woman recounted.
With pain that resounded in her stuttering words, Shams narrates that, under the weight of fear, she tried to calm the blackmailer, “but to no avail... He started asking me for ‘some nice things’, and unfortunately I started doing everything he wanted, for a period of 6 months.”
However, things developed, and the woman was surprised that her blackmailer, according to her words, “began asking me to perform satisfactory sexual acts related to my five-year-old daughter... Then I fought with him and blocked him.”
Despite the risk of defying tribal norms and the fear of stigma if her problem was exposed, Shams tried to carefully follow the legal path to stop the threat. She says: “I called the (community police) in the governorate in which I live, and they could not help me because he (i.e. the blackmailer) was outside Iraq, and also communicated with National Security, and reached the same obstacle.”
Iraq has not yet been able to pass a law to combat cybercrimes, although a draft law was already submitted to Parliament 12 years ago and was subject to amendments. However, Iraqi executive authorities are tasked with confronting some cybercrimes and the blackmail associated with them, including the “Iraqi Community Police.”
According to an official statement, an annual increase in electronic blackmail crimes is observed in Iraq, amounting in 2021 to about 1,950 cases handled by the community police, said Brigadier General Ghaleb Al-Attiyah, the former commander of the Iraqi community police, in remarks to Asharq Al-Awsat. (He left his position in October).
The particularity of Iraqi society leaves its mark on the way extortion crimes are treated, since “most of the victims are women, especially children,” according to Al-Attiyah, who explained that the “seriousness of the matter is that these incidents in Iraqi society develop into what is known as crimes of honor killing, or killing to wash away shame, or suicide, not to mention girls running away from their families for fear of their lives.”
Al-Attiyah attributed the increase in electronic blackmail crimes to several reasons, including “the absence of a law on cybercrime, and reliance on the existing penal code dating back to the 1960s.”
When asked by Asharq Al-Awsat about the mechanism followed if the perpetrator was outside the borders of Iraq, he answered: “Certainly, in our work, we face many (transnational) cases... but frankly, we were able to address some of the incidents through (personal relationships) with officers in Arab countries... but this issue is difficult (...) and some routine procedures for tracking and prosecuting allow criminals to get away.”
A new obstacle hindered the attempts of Iraqi Shams to break free from the shackles of blackmail. If there is no developed local deterrent law that protects her if the perpetrator is residing in her country... then what if she faces a blackmailer from outside the borders?... And what did she proceed?
“Resist”
Luck was on Mrs. Shams’ side, as when she told a friend about her problem, he advised her to resort to the “Resist Initiative to Combat Electronic Blackmail.” The “Resist” volunteer initiative operates through electronic platforms on social media, and aims to “provide support” to victims.
“Resist” volunteers obtained enough information about the blackmailer’s identity. When they informed him that they would contact the German authorities if he did not stop the blackmailing immediately, he complied and ended his threats.
Despite its success in supporting the Iraqi woman, the founder of “Resist,” human rights activist Mohammad Al-Yamani, told Asharq Al-Awsat: “We realize that it is not possible to fully rely on the efforts of activists in transnational blackmail cases, as the movement and coordination of the official police and judicial authorities has more impact and is more legal.”
“Resist” receives many complaints related to blackmail crimes and undertakes “directing victims to available legal paths, and completing the collection of required incriminating evidence through a legal support team,” according to its founder, who admits that “transnational electronic crimes are very difficult due to the technical and legal obstacles resulting from the absence of regional and international coordination in this field, compared, for example, to exchanging information between countries quickly and intensively in the case of money crimes or terrorism.
Al-Yamani calls for implementing agreements pertaining to electronic crimes between Arab countries as a “first stage,” and says: “An executive body must be established (similar to Interpol) to exchange information and prosecute criminals in electronic blackmail cases to protect victims.”
An Arab diplomat and a third party
Through the door of taking pride in the word, paying attention to the gesture, and staying away from what could stain the diplomatic suit, blackmailers of a unique type exploited a weak point in the life of an Arab diplomat, and through arenas and communications that took place in more than one country, including (his workplace), they turned their past electronic weapons on the man, in an incident that was documented and whose details were shared with by activist Mohammad Al-Yamani, without revealing names or identities.
Things appeared to be almost normal. The Arab diplomat worked in one of the countries, and in one way or another, “he became involved with his female citizen, who was residing in the same country where he worked. After a while, that woman threatened him with publishing the conversations and pictures she obtained in the context of their relationship, and asked him for financial compensation.”
The Arab diplomat responded “twice” to the blackmail. In the third time, he thought about resorting to the judiciary but later backed down after he learned that because of his situation, he must notify his country’s foreign ministry and embassy, which consequently means the case will be exposed and his professional future may be at risk.
But the surprise was that the two parties to the blackmail crime were not just two residents of the same country, as the Arab diplomat believed, and the victim discovered that “the perpetrator, who had left the crime scene for her home country to escape a potential prosecution, had carried out the operation on behalf of (a third party).”
This third party was none other than “the diplomat’s wife, who had a dispute with him and resided in their hometown. She (i.e. his wife) instigated the blackmailer from afar, taking advantage of her distance from the crime scene and the difficulty of prosecuting her internationally, to tighten the screws on the man with the aim to obtain divorce and financial gains, Al-Yamani recounted.
Fraud and impersonation
In late December 2021, Egyptian student at Ain Shams University, Shorouk Fouad (27), received a message via the Messenger application showing a photo of a person wearing clothes similar to the Egyptian police uniform.
The message included a claim from the sender that he “works as an officer,” and that he had received a report against her, accompanied by some pictures of her, according to what Shorouk told Asharq Al-Awsat.
In a stressful and confusing manner, the blackmailer pressured the Egyptian girl, who recounted: “He asked me to quickly send my data and pictures so that he would start moving to resolve the issue of the report in an amicable manner, and so that it would not reach my family. Under the pressure of fear and tension, I sent him my data, my location, and my photos.”
The relationship took immediately a different turn as soon as the sender obtained the girl’s data and photos. He began to blackmail her for the purpose of “establishing a relationship,” according to what she says, otherwise he would expose her in front of her family. Shorouk confirms that her blackmailer, in further threatening her, “actually created pages on social media” using her photos.
Shorouk, and her family, who supported her after learning of what had happened, thought that filing a police report would prosecute the accused and end a nightmare that had long exhausted them, but instead received a shocking news.
The first thing that awaited the girl was that “officials from the Qalyubia Security Directorate and officers from the Internet Investigations” told her, according to her account, that he (i.e. the blackmailer) “is impersonating an officer, and that officers are prohibited from posting pictures in uniform on any social networking site.” The second surprise was that the blackmailer who spoke to her in an “Egyptian dialect” was communicating with her “via a phone number belonging to a Libyan telecommunications company.”
In addition to the psychological pressure, the girl suffered the loss of her engagement after problems arose with the young man she was in a relationship with. Regarding the pursuit of her blackmailer, “the only report she was able to file was dated January 4, 2022, at the Qalyubia Security Directorate,” which serves its place of residence. It included her accusation of the blackmailer of impersonating her on Facebook, while saying that she “was informed that no action could be taken against other crimes, because the phone number is not Egyptian.”
...But can anyone obtain a Libyan phone number without his data being available to service providers?
In an effort to investigate Shorouk’s case, Asharq Al-Awsat obtained the phone number through which the Egyptian girl said she received blackmail messages. Based on its key number, the author of this investigation could prove that it belonged to a specific company that provides mobile phone services in Libya. He sent an inquiry to the company, asking whether it was possible for a person to buy a line belonging to the company without proof of his identity... An official in charge of the company’s accounts on social media stated that the rules for purchasing its lines include “providing the national number and proof of identity.” (ID card or passport).
When we asked the company official about the possibility of a non-Libyan citizen purchasing a line, he said that in that case it was necessary to “present a valid passport and a valid residence certificate.”
Determining the identity of the owner of the line, or at least the person who sold it to its current user, then seems possible, as Egypt and Libya signed, along with other countries, in 2010 the “Arab Agreement to Combat Information Technology Crimes.”
The agreement stipulates the provision of technical and legal assistance and the extradition of criminals in a number of criminal cases, including “sexual exploitation.” While Egypt ratified the convention in 2014, Libya, which is rife with political conflicts, is yet to endorse it.
Libyan women under threat
Does the situation seem different from the case of the Egyptian Shorouk in Libya, for example? Libyan human rights activist Khadija Al-Bouaishi tells us that she was “a witness and a supporting party for a number of Libyan women who fell victim to blackmail by a perpetrator in another Arab country. They were asked to send sums of money, otherwise... he (the blackmailer) threatened to publish their pictures and information and say that they practice witchcraft.”
Once again, due to the failure to activate international prosecutions, the attempts of these Libyan women to take the legal course against their blackmailer, who resides in another country, were shattered. Al-Bouaishi attributes the matter to “weak legislation, the absence of technical qualifications, and the lack of a local security apparatus specialized in combating cybercrimes.”
“Thus, many obstacles hinder the prosecution of blackmailers inside the country, and the cases are also more complex and almost impossible if the perpetrator is outside Libya,” she remarked.
Crimes without confrontation... and a rare experience for the Interpol
As technological crimes rely on unconventional means, they do not require a confrontation between the perpetrator and the victim, which guarantees relative safety for the perpetrators, and enable them to some degree to hide and evade prosecution, especially when their activities occur across borders,” Former Assistant Minister of the Interior for Information Technology and Internet Crimes, Major General Mahmoud Al-Rashidi, told Asharq Al-Awsat.
The main feature in cases of electronic blackmail, according to Al-Rashidi, is that some “perpetrators rely on exhausting the victims by directing intense abuse based on artificial information with the aim of subjecting the targets to blackmail.”
The Interpol places cybercrime among its areas of competence, noting that criminals adopt new techniques to commit attacks against governments, companies and individuals, and that crimes do not stop at borders, whether they were physical or virtual and cause damage and pose threats to victims around the world.
The Interpol press office did not respond to questions sent by Asharq Al-Awsat to find out the extent of its participation in operations to pursue, seize, or exchange information in transnational electronic blackmail crimes, especially in Arab countries.
However, a rare experiment carried out by the organization in 2014 resulted in the arrest of 58 people within organized crime networks operating from the Philippines, and which was behind “sexual blackmail” cases, including the case of Scottish teenager Daniel Perry (17), who committed suicide in 2013 after falling victim to an extortion attempt on the Internet.
According to Interpol, this operation was the first of its kind, and witnessed the participation of police agencies in Scotland, Hong Kong, Singapore, and the Philippines, as well as the US National Security Investigations Division, in a process funded by the United Kingdom’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office.
Despite the Arab precedence in establishing a convention to combat transnational information crimes, these crimes are happening and will continue to occur, until the right mechanisms are put into effect and executive entities are formed to overcome obstacles that hinder its implementation. Only then may hundreds and perhaps thousands of victims be saved from extremely bad fates that begin with defamation and stigma and sometimes end with murder.
