On Friday, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak resigned as leader of his middle east nation. But was his exit all a carefully orchestrated scheme?
During the height of the uprising in Cairo, President Mubarak assured the United States and other foreign allies that he intended to resign. Except he didn’t — at least not right away. Instead, he took to the national airwaves with a live speech declaring his intention to stay on and fight for the citizens of his country. But were his words really delivered live?
Soon after the speech ended, Egyptian authorities announced that Mubarak was no longer in Cairo, but had fled to a nearby resort location. But while the nation was glued to their televisions expecting to hear a live announcement from Mubarak himself that he was resigning, Mubarak may actually have just been implementing his exit strategy, along with securing for himself billions in Egyptian currency.
During his 30 year tenure, Mubarak is known to have taken a piece of virtually every significant business deal in the country., which amounted to lucrative kick-backs. This includes development projects throughout the Nile basin to transit projects on the Suez Canal, which equaled about 4% of the world’s oil shipments. “There was no accountability, no need for transparency,” says Prof. Amaney Jamal of Princeton University. “He was able to reach into the economic sphere and benefit from monopolies, bribery fees, red-tape fees, and nepotism. It was guaranteed profit.”
So his oddly delayed exit may have been a set-up to allow Mubarak time to move money around and hide significant parts of his fortune from ever being found and returned to the Egyptian people. Which equates to a fake-out. While Egyptians were watching what they thought was a live broadcast of Mubarak, he may have been behind the scenes buying time and gathering cash for a clean getaway.
If true, this could all be easier said than done. The Swiss government announced it is temporarily freezing any assets in Swiss banks potentially linked to Mubarak.
