Latest / Crime Night / Faisal's Snake: The Decade-Long Blueprint for Betrayal, Blackmail, and Brutal Murder

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Faisal's Snake: The Decade-Long Blueprint for Betrayal, Blackmail, and Brutal Murder · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the deep dive. Tonight we step into a
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: story that isn't about a sudden snap or you know,
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: desperate need. It's about something colder, calculated, pure malice, executed
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: with chilling patients.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it starts in a place you'd expect noise, maybe chaos,
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: but here it's quiet, eerily quiet.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: We're in the al Warak police station, Cairo. It's late
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: two thousand and nine. Set the scene for us.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Okay, so picture it four am, holding cell. The air
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: is probably stale, cold. You've got maybe what a dozen
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: guys crammed in there, and they're talking, you know, the
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: usual stuff, petty theft, maybe a fight that got out
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: of hand owing money, crimes of opportunity, mostly street stuff.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Standard procedure, almost But then there's one.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: Guy, exactly Walady. He's twenty six, and he's just sitting there, silent,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: doesn't say a word about why.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: He's been brought in because he knows.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Oh, he knows. Whatever. These other guys did impulsive acts,
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: maybe stupid mistakes, that doesn't even compare. His wasn't an accident.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: It was the end result of a plan, a decade
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: long plan.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: A blueprint for betrayal. That's what we're tracing today. Isn't
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: it the path of this man they called Fhasal Snake.
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: That's the mission. We need to go back, way back,
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: more than ten years before that morning in the cell.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: We need to understand the kind of well, the kind
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: of person who operates like this, the sheer patients involved
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: in sustaining that level of well malice.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's do it. Let's rewind in nineteen ninety eight.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Where does this seed get planted.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: We're in a village in alcohol Ubia. Will lead to
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: sixteen living at home parents, seven brothers.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: And sisters, a big family, normal life presumably.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: For the siblings. Yeah, they were getting on with things,
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: school work, the usual progression, but we'll lead. He was different, failing,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: consistently failing.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: So what's driving that? Just lack of ability or something else.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: The sense you get is it's darker than that. Not ambition,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: not really. It's described as this bitter, corrosive hatred, envy.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: He didn't just want success. He seemed to resent anyone
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: else having it, possession's status.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: He wanted what they had or wanted them not to
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: have it exactly.
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: And money. It all boiled down the money he saw
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: it as the only thing that mattered, and he'd do anything,
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: literally anything, to get his hands on it.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: So that leads him to Cairo, right against.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: His mother's wishes. Apparently she begged him not to go,
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: but he has for the city. His only contact there
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: his aunt Sabra Okay family connection nominally, she had been
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: married since ninety three to this merchant, respected guy, successful, wealthy.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: The key thing here.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: Is wealthy, and Walid sees this.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: He sees opportunity. When Sabra visited home, he wasn't looking
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: at his aunt. He was like auditing her the gold
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: she wore, the cash she might have carried. He zeroed
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: in on the husband, not as an uncle though, no, No,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: as a bank a potential investor for some large scale business. Yeah,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: this wasn't about family ties. It was target acquisition from
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: the very beginning, which bring us.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: To the really chilling part the plan. He's sixteen, but
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: he figures out he can't just show up asking for money.
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: He needs a facade. He has to look the part, experience, sophisticated,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: someone you'd trust with a serious business venture, not just
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: some kid from the village.
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: And that takes time, a lot of time.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Five years. Think about that five years of groundwork. He
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: moves to Phasal, a district in Giza, part of Greater Cairo,
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: and for the first two years he's doing grunt work,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: day labor, selling cotton candy on the street, earning maybe
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: five ten Egyptian pounds a day, barely surviving that.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: It wasn't just about survival.
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Was it. No, it was reconnaissance. He's using this time,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: this drudgery to map out the entire commercial area, figure
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: out what works, what makes money. It shows incredible, kind
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: of scary dedication to the long con.
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: And he finds his target industry.
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: He does. He figures out that a natural juice shop
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: is the way to go. Apparently he had talking to
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: someone working at one, found out the daily profit margins,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: saw the potential for quick, high returns.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: So phase two, the apprenticeship. This is around two thousand, yeah.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Roughly two thousand to two thousand. He gets himself hired
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: at a juwe shop right there on the main street
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: in Fasal, and for five years he becomes the model employee,
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: learning the trade, mastering it. He works his way up
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: from just selling juice to becoming the store manager. He
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: learns inventory pricing, buying, supplies everything. The owner apparently thought
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: he was gold, honest, hard working, reliable, But underneath, underneath,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: he wasn't just learning how to run a business. He
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: was meticulously studying how to cheat a business, every trick
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: for skimming profits, manipulating stock, cooking the books. He was
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: becoming an expert in fraud, planning to become the owner's competitor,
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: using the owner's own methods against him.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Wow. So by two thousand and six, he's ready, He's
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: twenty three.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: He's built this persona master Willie, the experienced juice man.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: He's got the knowledge, the confidence built on deceit, but
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: confidence nonetheless. He goes back to Aunt Sabra and her
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: husband and presents the planned exactly. He lays out this
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: jew shop proposal. He's got all the details and sounds
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: completely convincing, because well, he has spent five years in
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: the trenches. Sober's impressed, tells her husband, who's seventy six
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: by now, you have to listen to.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: This young man, and the uncle buys it, hook.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: Line and sinker. They agree on a fifty to fifty partnership.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: The catch the husband puts up all the capital rent
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: for the shop, fitting it out, all the initial stock,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: everything well, lead's contribution, management and administration, his expertise.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: It's the perfect setup for him textbook and.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: He doesn't waste any time. Shop opens within two months,
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: prime location in Fasal, and from day one the cheating starts.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Rampant fraud, inventory manipulation, fake receipts, skimming cash.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: But how did the uncle not notice? If he's a
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: successful merchant.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: That's the disturbing genius of it. Walleid was careful. He
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: didn't keep all the profit. He paid the uncle his share,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: but it was only about twenty percent of what the
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: shop was actually making.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Still, twenty percent return. Wouldn't that seem low?
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: You'd think so. But maybe the uncle was treating it
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: as passive income, didn't scrutinize it too closely. Maybe Walid
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: convinced him margins were tight initially. Whatever the reason, Whaliad
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: paid him just enough enough to maintain trust, avoid suspicion.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: The silent theft.
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Continued, and it worked for how long?
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: About a year and a half, smooth sailing, fraudulent profit rolling.
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: In Then mid two thousand and seven, everything changes. While
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: he gets a call from.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Sabra what happened?
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: Her husband, the uncle has been hospitalized. He's in critical
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: condition in al.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: Warak okay so will lead rushes to the hospital. Family duty.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: He rushes there, Yes, but what's going through his mind?
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: It's terrifying. Sobs, frantic, worried, sick about her husband. Outside
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: the ICU will lead. He's standing there calculating, calculating what
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: in hurricance if the old man dies, who gets his
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: share of the business, Who are the heirs? How does
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: he stop them from digging into the shop's finances and
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: uncovering the years of fraud. His only concern was protecting
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: his stolen enterprise.
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: That is incredibly cold.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Pure self preservation, zero empathy. And when the husband stabilizes
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: just slightly, Walid makes his move immediately do He puts
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: the pressure on Sabra, intense pressure. He tells her, look,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: if he dies now his other heirs, kids from a
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: previous marriage, maybe they'll take everything. You'll be left with
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: nothing from this business. Playing on her fear, absolutely, he
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: convinces her the only way to protect yourself is to
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: change the partnership contract, get the husband's name off it,
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  Speaker 2: put her name on as the fifty percent partner.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: But why would sober agree to basically cut out her
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: dying husband.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: Ah, This is where it gets even darker. Walid hadn't
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: just been focused on the business. He'd been watching Sobra too.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: He knew things, knew what he knew. She wasn't exactly faithful,
• 7:35
  Speaker 2: that she had her own secrets, maybe exploiting her husband's
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: wealth herself through illucent relationships. Walid apparently knew she was
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: morally compromised, so.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: He used that against her.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: It seems so. He hinted subtly, or maybe not so subtly,
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: that if she didn't agree to the contract change, her
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: secrets might just find their way back to the rest
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: of the family. It was blackmail, essentially using her own
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: shame as leverage.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Wow A shared corruption.
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: Precisely, and Sabra, trapped between fear of exposure and losing
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: the potential profits gave.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: She agreed, and the husband, the sick.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: Man, believing his wife was acting in their best interests,
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: or perhaps too ill to fully comprehend, he signed the
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: amended contract just two days after stabilizing from critical condition.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Walid had successfully insulated the fraudulent business from any legitimate
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: claims by the real errors and the timing. The timing
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: is just gut wrenching. Exactly one week after that contract
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: was changed, the merchant died natural causes, it seems, but
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Walid had perfectly positioned himself. His stolen asset was secure.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: So now he's partners with his aunt, the one he blackmailed.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And for the next year or so, the scam continues.
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: Walied keeps running the shops, skimming the profits. Sober comes
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: by once a month to collect her fifty percent share
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: of the reported income. Financially, Walid has won. He got
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: everything he set out to get.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't enough, was it.
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: No, This is where the story takes another even more
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: disturbing turn. The greed seem satisfied, but the underlying sickness,
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: the envy. It needs a new target.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: What was it this time?
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: Sober herself, specifically her relationships. Walid became consumed with jealousy.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: Why was she seeing other men? Didn't she realize he
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: was the architect of her current comfort. It morphed into
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: the sense of personal inadequacy, a twisted possessiveness.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: He felt insufficient, Yeah, and.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: He decided he decided he needed to be with her
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: atlantically sexually with his own aunt, the one whose husband
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: he defrauded and whose secrets he used his leverage.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: This is spiraling way beyond financial.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Crime, now completely the calculated patient planning starts to fray,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: replaced by something more volatile, more personal. The core toxicity
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: is finding a new, uglier outlet.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: And this leads to the final act two thousand and nine.
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: Yes, one morning, around eleven am, Whileid goes to Sober's
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: apartment in al Warack.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Why what was the pretext?
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: It's not entirely clear if there was a specific business pretext,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: maybe just a visit talk for a bit. Then while
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: her back has turned, maybe in the kitchen, he grabs
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: something heavy, a wooden stick. Oh no, and he vic's
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: her strikes her on the head suddenly, violently, just like that,
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: just like that. The attack apparently terrifies her into submission.
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: The shift from nephew and business partner to violent attacker
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: must have been shocking, paralyzing. And then he assaults her,
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: forces her into a sexual encounter. She's clearly terrified, maybe
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: seeing the evil people later described in his eyes.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: It doesn't end there, does it.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: No? About ten minutes later he forces her again a
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: second assault. She complies, completely subjugated, likely fearing for her
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: life given his instability.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: This is horrific. What happens in his head after that, It's.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: Like the frenzy breaks for a moment, reality crashes back in.
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: But his first thought isn't remorse or fear of the police.
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: It's fear of family.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: He's worried she'll tell his mother.
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly that sober, will expose the assault, maybe even hints
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: of the fraud to his mother, his siblings, The family, shame,
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: the judgment. That's what terrifies him.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: Most, and that fear drives the final decision.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Yes, he decides in that moment, she cannot be allowed
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: to speak ever again. He has to silence her permanently.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: How how does he do it?
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: He ties her hands with a rope. Sabra, realizing what's happening,
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: desperately pleads for her life. She offers him everything, all
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: her money, her gold, anything he wants, just spare.
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: Her, but he's beyond reason now completely.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: He ignores the pleas, ignores the offers of wealth, the
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: very thing that drove him for a decade. He goes
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: to the kitchen, gets a knife. He stabs her repeatedly,
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: twenty six times. It's overkill, a frenzied attack driven by panic,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: the need to silence her. Absolutely, she dies there.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Instantly, My god, and then the coldness returns.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: Almost immediately, the panic subsides, the calculation kicks back in.
• 11:50
  Speaker 2: He ransacks the bedroom, takes cash, takes gold. But even then,
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: standing over her body, his mind goes back to the business.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: The contract.
• 11:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's wondering what happens now, what happens to the
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: partnership agreement. It's just unbelievable. His primary concern after murder
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: and assault is the legal status of his stolen.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: Shop, so he needs to cover his tracks right.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: He finds gasoline, likely in the kitchen, douses the apartment,
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: sets it on fire, destroys the evidence, or tries tou
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Then he just leaves, flees back to Fasil, goes home,
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: changes his clothes, and then reports to the jew shop.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: Tries to act like it's just another day, attempting to
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: slip back into the normalcy of the life he built
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: on lies.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: But a fire, a body that doesn't stay.
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Hidden, not for long. Neighbors see the smoke, call it in.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: Security forces arrive, find Sober's body. She was forty five,
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: and the investigations forensics quickly confirms the fire was arson deliberate.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: The medical examiner's initial report is brutal cause of death
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: strangulation first, then the twenty six stab wounds.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: So he strangled her too.
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: It seems that way from the report. Strangulation then stabbing,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: and crucially the report confirms the sexual assault happen and
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: before she died, is.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: There anything linking it to Walid?
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Immediately witnesses people saw him, the nephew visiting that morning,
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: seen leaving around the time the fire would have started.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: The connection is made very quickly, so they track him down.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: They find him at his home and the fasage just crumbles.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: The moment he sees the police, he confesses. Everything spills,
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: the entire story.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: Just like that.
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: No denial, apparently, immediate confession. It's like the pressure of
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: the years of deception, the horror of what he'd done.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: It just broke him. When confronted and.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: His family, you mentioned his fear of.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Their judgment, they were in shock, absolute disbelief. They couldn't
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: reconcile the ambitious young man they thought they knew, the
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: one who built a business with this monster capable of
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: such calculated cruelty and violence.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: What was the outcome?
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Legally charge, convicted, sentenced to death, And that final chilling
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: detail during the investigation, he apparently mentioned almost casually that
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: he suspect that his family wouldn't even claim his body
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: after the execution. That's how alienated he knew he'd become.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: So the story of Walid Phasal Snake, it really forces
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: you to look beyond just the final violent acts.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's about the decade that led up to it,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: the slow, mediculous cultivation of creed of envy, the way
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: he weaponized trust and family ties, and that final horrifying
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: detail worrying about the business contract right after the murder.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: It speaks to a complete absence of well humanity, a
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: moral vacuum.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that trajectory, the long term deception, the blackmail, then
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: shifting from that calculated financial crime into sudden brutal sexual violence.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: It's a terrifying progression.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: It shows someone fundamentally broken, perhaps where success in one
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: corrupt endeavor just created a void that needed to be
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: filled by something even darker. The malice just kept escalating,
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: searching for an outlet.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: It leads you with the really unsettling thought, doesn't it
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: If someone is willing to invest years, literally years of
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: patient deception, sacrificing every bond purely for gain and maybe
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: the perverse satisfaction of destroying someone else's life, how do
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: you even spot that?
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Right? Can society? Can the law even recognize that kind
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: of deep, internal, patiently nurtured malevolence before it explodes? Or
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: are people like Wali destined to play out their long
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: game until the devastating end. That's the question history forces
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: us to confront.