Private jet loaded with fake gold unfurls a mystery in 2 countries

When Zambian authorities searched a private jet that arrived from Egypt last week, they found a mysterious trove that included millions of dollars in cash, hundreds of bars of what appeared to be gold, and weapons. They arrested 12 people, six of them Egyptian citizens, and the haul stirred wild speculation in both countries. Zambian officials launched an inquiry into what they called a gold scam, eliciting a jittery response from Egyptian authorities. The Zambian officials said the gold was, in fact, fake — made of copper and zinc, probably in order to fleece foreign buyers. “This has been a clear case of scamming, gold scamming,” Nason Banda, director general of the country’s Drug Enforcement Commission, told a news conference days after the Aug. 14 raid. He said investigators at the airport had been tipped off beforehand about the plane’s suspicious cargo. Egyptian media outlets reported that several members of Egypt’s military and security services appeared to be among those arrested. Egyptian authorities seemed eager to play down the plane’s seizure: Two journalists covering the episode were detained in Cairo without charge on Saturday, then released on Sunday. 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. El-Sisi’s government, which has attempted to polish the country’s human rights record recently with overtures toward its political opposition and releases of several high-profile political prisoners, has not commented on the events of the last week. Zambia and Egypt have close ties, even though Zambia is often celebrated for its democratic governance and Egypt is often criticized as repressive. In June,el-Sisi visited Zambia to strengthen regional trade between northern and southern Africa. Story has more.<br/>