A private plane found with more than $5m (£4m) in cash, fake gold, guns and ammunition on board is at the centre of a deepening investigation in the Zambian capital, Lusaka.
Everyone knows the aircraft flew from the Egyptian capital, Cairo, and landed a fortnight ago in Zambia, but that is where the certainties stop. So far nobody in Egypt or Zambia admits to chartering the plane or owning its contents.
With so many questions unanswered rumours have been swirling.
Could those involved be high-level Egyptian or Zambian political or military figures? Was this a one-off flight or the first out of hundreds to finally be rumbled?
What is known is that all six Egyptians aboard the aircraft and others who joined them at Lusaka’s airport are due to appear in court on Monday.
Some of the Zambians who are being held have been charged with espionage and obtaining money on false pretences. The Egyptians have not yet been charged.
The world might have remained oblivious to it all were it not for a journalist whose fact-checking website, Matsda2sh, accused officials in Egypt of involvement in the incident.
Journalist disappears
Soon after that Egyptian plainclothes security forces raided Karim Asaad’s Cairo home in the dead of night and arrested him.
Source: bbc.com
