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The Well of Betrayal: How a Decade of Trust Ended in a Cairo Real Estate Murder · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine this scene Cairo. You can hear the traffic like
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: a constant hum way down below, but inside a hotel room,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: it's just quiet, too quiet. Yeah, it's twenty fifteen. There's
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a young woman, she's twenty seven, just staring at her phone.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: She's been calling her mother Muwata for three hours straight.
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: Nothing, and just a few hours before that contact was normal.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: Right after Mawata reached Minya.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Exactly a three hour drive south. The first call went
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: through fine, but now just silence, and the anxiety's building.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: You can just picture it. The only thing keeping her
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: slightly calm, her mother, who's sixty, wasn't alone. She traveled
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: with abdultawas the driver. The driver, yes, but more than that,
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: a man the family had trusted, i mean completely for
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: ten whole years.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: And that trust it wasn't just you know, he works
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: for us, It was deeper. He started back in what
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: two thousand and five in Kuwait.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Right as a driver for the whole family, Mawata, her husband,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: the son, the daughter.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: And apparently he was good at his job, diligent, seemed loyal.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: They treated him like family. That's the phrase that keeps
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: coming up.
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: He wasn't just driving. Malwata saw him as a personal assistant,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: someone she could confide in. She even apparently floated the
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: idea of him being a business partner.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, though those ventures never actually happened. Mm hmm, But
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: it shows the level of trust despite all this kindness. Though,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: there's this detail about him. What's that he was always
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: complaining Even though he had a good position, financially stable,
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: working for this respected family, he seemed perpetually discontent.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Restless, looking for something else exactly.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: It points to maybe a lack of contentment. Yeah, rita
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: is it's sometimes called like this stability wasn't enough. It
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: was almost a trap in his mind.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Seeing kindness not as something to value, but maybe something
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: to leverage.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Perhaps it's a really unsettling thought, isn't it that ten
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: years of seeming loyalty could just be.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Waiting for the right opportunity, Which brings us to the
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: trip itself. Mahwata loved Egypt, wanted a vacation place there right.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: She set aside a pretty significant budget around one million
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: Egyptian pounds for an apartment in Cairo, and she asked
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: Abdul ta Wab to help her find one.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: The trusted assistant.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: The trusted assistant, and he sees this budget, sees the
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: plan and immediately spots, well, not an apartment, but an
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: opportunity for himself. Howso a Cairo apartment that's straightforward, lots
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: of eyes, agents processes. He needs something different, isolation control,
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: so he pivots hard.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: He tells her to forget Cairo completely.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: He says, why deal with the conjection. Buy farmland instead,
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Upper Egypt Alminya Governorate, much cheaper, he.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Argues, Okay, hang on. A driver suddenly becomes a real
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: estate advisor, pitching remote farmland over a prime Cairo spot.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Didn't that like ring any alarm bells?
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: You'd think so, wouldn't you? Yeah, But it just speaks
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: volumes about how deeply they trusted him. He painted his
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: picture a better life, quieter, a good investment, surrounded by quote.
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: Con villagers find villagers right.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: Mawata wasn't immediately sold, apparently, but he pushed, said she
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: had to see the land herself to really get it,
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: and she agreed. She agreed to travel with him to Minya,
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: the two of them. Her daughter stays behind in the
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: Cairo hotel. That decision urged by him.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: It was fatal, so they head south Malwatta and Abdultahwab.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: The daughter waits in Cairo.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: And for the first couple of hours after they supposedly
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: arrived in Minya, there's some contact texts, maybe a brief call,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: then nothing.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: The phone just stops connecting entirely, not unanswered, just dead.
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Three hours go by like this, pure dread building.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: The daughter finally calls her brother back in.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: Kuwait, and what does he say?
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: He does what you know, maybe any of us would do. Initially,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: he tries to rationalize it. He falls back on the
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: track record the ten years, the ten years. Don't worry,
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: he tells her mom's with Abdul Tawab. He's been with
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: us forever. It'll be fine. He just couldn't imagine anything else.
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: But the daughter, her gut feeling is screaming otherwise.
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, she can't shake it. So she ignores her brother's reassurance,
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: gets back in a car and starts driving south herself
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: towards Minya.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Heading for the farm, the last known location from the
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: phone signal.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Exactly, And while she's on that drive, her phone rings.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: It's abdil to wop.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: Finally, what does he say? What's the excuse.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's incredibly flimsy design, just to stall her. Yeah,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: he claims, Mawata is just wandering around the farm. Maybe
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: she's out of signal range, or she can't hear the phone.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Just walking around, walking around for hours, unable to be reached. Right,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: it makes no sense, but it buys him time. Three
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: more hours pass while the daughter drives. Then she arrives.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: She's at the farm, this remote property, and this.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Next moment is just incredible presence of mind under unimaginable stress.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: What does she do before she even goes inside? Before
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: anything else? She takes out her phone, photographs the outside
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: of the farm building and sends it instantly to her
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: brother via WhatsApp.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: Wow, just like click send.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: That single photo becomes the anchor for everything that follows,
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: absolutely critical evidence.
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: So she goes to the door, presumably expecting her mother.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Yes, but she's not met by her mother ye or
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: by Abdultawap. She's met by Halla, his wife.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: Okay, and Halla lets her in.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Halen lets her in, but she's immediately weird, insist she
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: won't let the daughter see Mowata right away, keeps pushing
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: her to stay for lunch. First lunch while the daughter
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: is frantic about.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Her missing mother exactly and Hala repeats the same weak's
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: story her husband used. Oh Mawata and Abdul Tawab are
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: just strolling the farm. It's clearly a lie, a delay tactic.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: The daughter is likely trapped in this awkward, terrifying hospitality situation,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: just trying.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: To get past the wife to find your mom. Right.
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: Another hour ticks by. Back in Kuwait, the brother tries
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: calling again. Now he can't reach his mother or his sister.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Oh no, that's the breaking point. Over twenty four hours missing,
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: the panic finally sets in fully. He makes call the embassy,
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: the Kuwaiti embassy in Cairo. He gives them everything, descriptions
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: of Muata sixty, the daughter, twenty seven, of Bultawab, the driver,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: and that WhatsApp.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: Photo of the farm crucial.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: Egyptian authorities get involved immediately. The first thing they do
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: trace the cell signals for both missing women, and they
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: lead where they converge, both signals stubbornly pinging from the
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: same area the Minya Governorate, specifically.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: The farm in the photo.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: The farm in the photo. Security forces mobilize heads straight there.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Abdultwab meets them outside.
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: And what's his story this time?
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: He's got a rehearsed lie ready claims, Oh, yes, they've
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: visited two days ago, but then they left, went back
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: to Cairo to continue sightseeing. Said they gave him some
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: vacation time.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: Two days ago, but the daughter just arrived. The signals
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: are still there. It doesn't add up, not even close.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: And the investigators pick up on something immediately. His wife Hala,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: she's nervous, extremely nervous, visibly tense. That's a huge red
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: flag for the officers. They decide his story is incredible.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: They start searching the whole property meticulously for an hour, buildings, fields, sheds,
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: looking everywhere.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: But they find nothing, nothing but the signals.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: The signals are still right there, pinpointed to that farm area.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: They haven't moved. So the investigators realize they need to
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: refine the search. They call in forensic experts to reping
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: the signals, but with much higher precision, trying to narrow
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: it down not just horizontally, but vertically. And the refined
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: signals zero's in intensely focused on one specific spot on
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: the property.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Let me guess.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: A deep well one described as having been quote recently cleaned,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: which suddenly sounds incredibly sinister clean by filling it with
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: debris exactly, that well becomes the absolute focus. It takes
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: three solid days, three days of hauling out garbage, waste, rocks,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: all sorts of debris that had been deliberately dumped inside,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: three days until finally they reached the bottom and the
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: truth comes out.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: Horrifying, isn't it?
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: It is? They recover the bodies Mowata and her daughter
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: from the bottom of that well, which was over twenty
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: meters deep, both in an advanced state of decomposition.
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Twenty meters that's deep, and the forensics what do they show?
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: Brutal details. Mawata the mother, she had a severe head
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: worn from a sharp instrument, but crucially, the official cause
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: of death.
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: Was drowning, meaning she was likely thrown in alive or
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: at least immediately after being struck.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: That seems to be the implication, thrown in, possibly stunned
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: or unconscious, but drowned in the water at the bottom.
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: And the daughter.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Her death was different, four separate stab wounds across her body.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: The stabbing itself was the cause of.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Death, so she was killed first, then dumped, yes.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Killed above ground likely during that struggle when she realized
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the danger with Hala before being put in the well
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: with her mother.
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  Speaker 2: Unbelievable cruelty. The whole family involved.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: The arrests confirmed it. Abdul Tahwab, his wife, Hala, and
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: get this, Halea's three brothers, who were also at the
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: farm all arrested.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: Her brothers too. Wow.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Abdul Tahwad confessed the motive was exactly what you'd expect, robbery.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: He wanted the money Mauwata brought.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: The four hundred thousand Egyptian pounds for the down payment that.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Was the target. His confession laid out the sequence. He
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: lured Mawada to the well, pretending to show her something.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: About the farm, got her right to the edge.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Right to the edge. Then he struck her with that
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: sharp object and pushed her in simple brutal efficiency.
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: And the daughter's arrival threw a wrench in the plan completely.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: When she showed up suspicious asking questions. Hala forced her
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: into a room, trying to contain her.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: But the daughter must have realized fought.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Back, it seems so when she understood the danger, tried
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: to escape or scream. That's when Halea and her three
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: brothers attacked her, stabbing her multiple times. It wasn't one person,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: it was a group attack to silence.
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: Her, the entire family unit basically conspiring in murder and
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: cover up husband, wife, brothers in law, all for cash.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they went to extraordinary lengths to hide it,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: dumping tons of garbage and waste into that well. They
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: thought they'd buried the evidence completely.
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: But they made one huge mistake.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: One critical technological error, in their rush. They threw the
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: victim's phones into the well along with the bodies.
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: The very things leading the police right to them exactly.
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: Those phones kept pinging relentlessly from beneath all that garbage.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: The signals led investigators straight to the grave. Technology wouldn't
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: let them get away with it.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: So the Cord case, what was the outcome.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Swift justice relatively speaking. Abdul tah Wab, as the main
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: plotter and the one who killed Mwata, was sentenced.
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: To death execution, and the others, Hala and her brothers.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: They received fifteen years each hard labor for their role
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: in the daughter's murder and the extensive cover up. The
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: sentences reflected their specific parts in the.
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: Crime acknowledging his primary role, but their active participation. Right.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: It's such a stark example of that concept, isn't it.
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: The betrayal of salt and bread is schwe.
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: Mah absolutely sharing food, sharing life, building trust over years,
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: a decade. In this case, the family opened their lives,
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: their resources to him, and this was the repayment for.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: Four hundred thousand pounds about fifty thousand dollars at the time.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Maybe was that what ten years of trust was worth
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: to him?
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: It makes you question the nature of loyalty itself, doesn't it.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: This wasn't a crime of passion, It wasn't sudden. It
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: seems rooted in that long term discontent finally finding a specific,
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: calculated outlet for financial gain.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Which leads to that really disturbing final thought. Could ten
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: years of what looked like perfect loyalty actually be well
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: a performance, a decade long setup.
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: A ten year cultivation of trust, just waiting for the
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: moment of maximum vulnerability and opportunity, planned by someone who
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: fundamentally lacked that basic human quality of contentment. It's a
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: chilling possibility.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: So when you hear this story, the takeaway for you
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: isn't just about a property deal gone tragically wrong in Egypt.
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: It's about something much deeper, much more unsettling.
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, It's about how easily profound betrayal can mask itself.
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: How someone can weaponize years of kindness and reliance for
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: a calculated, cold blooded objective.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: That idea of sociopathic loyalty. Someone mimicking connection, building trusts meticulously,
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: all while waiting for the perfect moment to cash in
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: that trust at the highest price.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: It really makes you wonder, doesn't it. How well do
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: we truly know the people we let clothes? Are we
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: just providing them with the currency of trust they plan
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: to spend later?
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: Have you thought something to definitely mull over until our
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: next deep dive