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Wafaa and Her Seven Husbands · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine this. You're standing at the counter, you know, one
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: of those government offices, fluorescent lights humming overhead, and you
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: realize that this single piece of plastic in your hands,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: your national ID card, because it's expired. That tiny detail
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: is about to unravel thirteen years of incredibly careful, layered
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: criminal deception. That's exactly the situation Wafa, forty one years old,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: found herself in back in early twenty twenty two. She
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: was just there for something routine, really renew the idea,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: change her status from married to divorced. Simple enough, right,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: except she needed that new card urgently because of Mazoom,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: the registrar for what was supposed to be husband number seven.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: He'd refused to do the ceremony strictly by the book.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Her idea was expired period.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: And that refusal, that adherence to protocol was catastrophic for
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: her as a bureaucratic slip. But on her side this time,
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: for over a decade, Wafa had played the system she'd
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: relied on, you know, administrative lag, outdated physical documents. But
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: forcing this renewal, it meant her entire history, everything was
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: finally going into the Civil Registri's main updated database.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: So the clerk starts processing the request, runs the query,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: and the system doesn't just blink, it practically screams. Immediately,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: this employee sees alerks popping up stacks of compliance judgments.
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: Right. These are court orders basically filed by previous husbands,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: men who had completely lost track of Waffa. They were
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: legally demanding she returned home, you know, under the marriage
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: contract she'd just disappeared from.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: So the officials digging deeper now, and it's just a mess.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: The digital file shows evidence of five current legally active marriages.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: At the same time, they do find one legitimate divorce
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: decree way back from twenty ten. That's husband number one.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: But the name on that decree doesn't match the name
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: on the divorce paper Waffa was trying to use for
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: husband number seven. And the dates are all wrong too.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: The real divorce was twenty ten, the paper she had
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: showed a much later date. It just didn't add up
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: mathematically impossible.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: The second the supervising officer is alerted it's over, waff
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: has taken into custody. The interrogation, from what the reports say,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: didn't take long. Her story got confused, tangled until she
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: finally admitted it. Yes, she was right now married to
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: five different men simultaneously. So today we're doing a deep
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: dive into this almost unbelievable case. Wafa a woman who
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: between twenty nine and twenty twenty two legally married seven
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: different men, and for a lot of that time she
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: apparently kept five of them as active spouses, all using
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: essentially a manipulated ID card and some forged documents.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: It's staggering. We really need to unpack how she exploited
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: the system, the exact bureaucratic gaps, and of course the
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: legal consequences of it all.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, so to figure out the how, we absolutely have
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: to start with the why. What was driving her?
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Well, the sources paint a picture of Waffa, who was
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: just twenty eight when this all began. She seems driven
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: by this really powerful internal conflict. On one hand, a
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: very strong desire for you know, relationship, intimacy, the stability
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: of marriage, but on the other hand, a deep, almost
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: paralyzing fear of conflict, especially divorce.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: She just couldn't face the fighting, the legal battles, the
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: missiness of a typical divorce proceeding. So when she felt
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: done with a marriage. Bored, tired, she just wanted out, clean, break, vanish,
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: start over.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: And that led her to adopt this. While this highly
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: personalized and dangerous philosophy, she reportedly thought, if men can
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: have multiple wives, why can't I just sequence husbands without
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: all the drama. She basically decided to bypass the entire
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: legal and social structure of divorce.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Just leave, which brings us to the blueprint two thousand
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: and nine. Husband number one exactly.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: She meets him, marries him, and here's the crucial first step.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: She immediately updates her national idea, gets a change to married,
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: listing H one's name very important. She stays with him
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: for about a year, establishes that legal record, then poof,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: she's gone. Moves to a different governorate entirely okay.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: So she's established as Mary DH one on paper. Then
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: comes husband number two in twenty ten. She tells him
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: she's divorced, but she can't risk each one finding her
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: or causing trouble. So what's the move.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: This is the genius part, or well the criminal only
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: clever party. She secretly initiates a cools against husband one.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Cool, that's the no fault divorce A wife can.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: Initiate precisely, and she gets it. She successfully obtains a
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: formal official court decree stating she is legally divorced from
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: husband one. Now here's the key, because of how slow
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: the systems were, especially back then, she holds two contradictory
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: official items.
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, let me see if I have this straight. She
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: has her national ID card which still says she's married
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: to H one because she hasn't updated it correct and
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: she has an official court paper saying she's divorced from
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: H one.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: Yes, she basically weaponized the time lag and the bureaucracy.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: She turned the system's own processes against itself.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: So the miszoon arives for the wedding to husband number two.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: He asks for ID, He sees the ID, it clearly
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: lists married to H one. WAFA then calmly hands him
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: the official divorce decree from the court sealed at everything.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: The maszoom looks at both the name H one is
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: on the ID and the name H one is on
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: the official divorce paper.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: They match, and she, just.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: As presumably explained, she just hasn't gotten around to updating
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: the ID card status itself yet, which you know, probably
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: seemed plausible enough people procrastinate. The maszoon sees the official
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: court stamp the matching names, He presumes the divorce paper
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: is legitimate and overrides the ID status. He performs the
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: second marriage. It's done.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, So now she's legally married to husband two.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: Husband one is legally avorce from her, but probably has
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: no idea.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: Where she is, and might even be one of those
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: guys who later filed a compliance judgment trying to find her.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: And the pattern starts right away. You mentioned this strict
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: two year rotation.
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's peculiar, almost clockwork. She stays with husband two
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: for two years until twenty thirteen, then apparently gets bored,
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: feels the need to move on, and runs away again.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: And there's a financial angle emerging too.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: Right, Definitely, the reports mentioned she managed to save up
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: a pretty significant sum of money from husband too before
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: she left, so it wasn't just about avoiding conflict or
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: seeking intimacy. There was a clear material benefit building up
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: as well.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: So twenty thirteen she finds husband three. He's apparently wealthier.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Does she use the same.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Trick yep, exactly the same method presents the ID still
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: saying married to h one presents the original court divorce
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: paper for H one. The names match, The Maszoon accepts it.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: Marriage number three is secured, but she stays with.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: H three for two years until twenty fifteen. And this
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: is where the original loophole closes on.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Her right because somewhere during her time with H three,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: or perhaps just as she's leaving him, she finally updates
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: her National ID card. Now her idea officially lists her
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: as married to H three.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: Uh so the old trick won't work anymore. If he
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: tries to marry husband four, the Maszoon will see married
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: to H three on the ID.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: And she'd hand him a divorce paper for H one.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: The names wouldn't match. The whole thing falls apart instantly.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: He wouldn't proceed.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, so she's cornered. The bureaucratic lag she relied on
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: is gone because she updated her ID. Is this where
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: she finally has to face a real divorce process with husband.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Three that would completely undermine her core motivation? Right, the
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: whole point was to avoid exactly that confrontation and complexity.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: She perfected exploiting the loophole, but the system, by catching
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: up with her ID update, forced her hand so she
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: pivots pivots. How this is the really dangerous step. She
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: moves from exploiting administrative delays to outright criminal forgery. She
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: decides the physical document itself is the weak link. She
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: can now manipulate.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Wait, she's going to fake a court document precisely.
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: She takes her legitimate Cools document, the one divorcing her
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: from husband one back in twenty ten, and she counterfeits it.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: She meticulously changes the name of the husband being divorced
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: from H one to H three, and she changes the
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: date on the document to make it look recent, aligning
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: it with the time she's leaving H three.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: That is incredibly audacious, faking an official court decree.
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: Extremely so. In twenty fifteen, she finds husband four. She
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: goes at the maszoon. She presents her updated ID, correctly
• 7:57
  Speaker 2: showing married to H three. Then she presents her new
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: forged divorce paper, which also says she just divorced H three.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: The name's match, the date looks current, the document likely
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: has convincing stamps in format.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: And the bazoon, well, he's a registrar, not a forensic
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: document exact exactly.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: He's required more or less to trust official looking documents,
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: he sees the matching names, the official appearance. The fourth
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: marriage goes ahead.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: She's done it. She's moved from loophole to outright felony
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: forgery of state documents.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: And once she has that forgery method down, the whole
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: operation just scales up. It runs like clockwork again.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: Husband five and twenty seventeen, Husband six and twenty nineteen, same.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Routine, exactly the same Find suitable husband. Reports mentioned she
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: had criteria, maybe related to health or stability. Marry him
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: using the ID and the forged divorce paper from the
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: previous husband. Stay two years, save money, get bored, or
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: feel the need to move on, forge a new divorce
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: paper with the latest husband's name, run away, repeat.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: It's staggering that it went on for so long. What
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: about all the previous husbands H two, H three, H four,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: H five. Where were they?
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: That's one of the most fascinating parts. They essentially vanished
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: from her life and seemingly didn't or couldn't raise an
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: effective alarm. We know some filed those compliance judgments later
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: trying to compel her return legally, but they clearly couldn't
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: track her down physically. Her ability to just disappear into
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: a new governorate, maybe change her phone number. It was
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: remarkably effective, and sometimes secrecy helped her too well. In
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: the case of Husband five, for example, reports mentioned he
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: had children from a prior marriage and specifically asked Waffa
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: not to announce their marriage publicly.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Ah so that lack of social connection, fewer people knowing
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: made it even easier for her to operate under the.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: Radar, precisely left scrutiny, fewer chances for awkward questions or
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: for someone from her past to run into her.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: So she gets through husband five than husband six starting
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: in twenty nineteen, stays the usual two.
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: Years, runs away from H six in early twenty twenty two,
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: right on schedule, and that's when she meets the man
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: intended to be husband seven. She needs a new divorce document,
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: obviously a forged one saying she divorced six. But to
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: make the next step convincing to the Mazoon for age seven,
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: she first needs to get her own status sorted at
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: the civil registry, likely planning to update her idea after
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: securing the H seven marriage, but that Maszoon.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: That Maszoon insisted on seeing a valid unexpired ID before
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: he'd even proceed and hers it just.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: Expired, exactly, that tiny mundane detail, the expiration date that
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: forces her into the registry office to renew and change
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: her status before the wedding.
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: And that's when the clerk pulls up her file, sees
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: the impossible tangle of marriages, the compliance judgments. The whole
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: thirteen year house of cards collapses.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: Right confronted with the official records, defflicting documents, the multiple
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: active marriage flags, her story crumbled. She confessed to the
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: five concurrent marriages.
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: So looking back at the y again, that avoidance complex.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: Was that confirmed?
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: It seems so. The investigations apparently bore that out. Her
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: primary driver really did seem to be bypassing the emotional
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: and legal turmoil of divorce. It's almost bizarre creating this
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: incredibly complex, higher risk criminal enterprise just to avoid confrontation.
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: The method was extreme, but the root cause was in
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: a way surprisingly simple. Avoidance.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, avoidance explains the motive, but the actions. What were
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: the actual legal charges? This has to be serious?
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely, she was charged with multiple counts bigamy obviously
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: or collecting husbands, as some reports raised it. Then forgery
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: of official state documents those court decrees. That's a major
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: felony and potentially adultery charges as well. Given the concurrent marriages,
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: a thirteen year span of criminal activity across different places.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: So multiple serious charges. What was the outcome? What sentence
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: did she receive?
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: This is where it gets perhaps surprising to some. Despite
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: the severity, the length of time, the number of victims.
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: Waffa was sentenced to three years in prison, three.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: Years for thirteen years of deception, multiple marriages and forging
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: court papers. That seems lenient.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: It does raise questions definitely, there are a few vie
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: potential factors in the judicial process we should consider. First,
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: just the sheer complexity of prosecuting it. Imagine trying to
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: coordinate evidence and jurisdiction for five simultaneous bigamy cases, possibly
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: across different governorates, all tangled up with forged documents proving
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: the intent to deceive in each case would be challenging.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Okay, the logistics would be a nightmare for the prosecution right.
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: Second, sentencing often focuses on the statutory maximum for the
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: most severe single charge they can easily prove. That might
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: have been the forgery count, or perhaps one count of
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: bigamy rather than the cumulative effect of everything. The law
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: might not be well equipped to aggregate sentencing for such
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: unique pattern.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: And maybe the fact that she was a woman doing
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: this polygamy laws and social norms are usually focused on men.
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: That's a potential factor too. Yes, the legal frameworks might
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: implicitly be designed around the more common scenario of a
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: man having multiple wives. How does the court apply those precedents,
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: or lack thereof, to woman serially deceiving multiple husbands through
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: bureaucratic manipulation. It's uncharted territory in some ways.
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: So Wafa's case, running from twenty nine to twenty twenty two,
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: it really does expose this huge vulnerability, doesn't it. This
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: gap between the physical piece of paper someone shows a
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: local official like the maszoom was she could forge, and
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: the centralized digital record held by the state.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: Which eventually caught her, but only when she was forced
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: to interact with it directly because of that expired ID.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: But beyond the mechanics of the fraud, there's something else here,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Isn't there a really profound question for you.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Listening to this, absolutely think about it. She married seven
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: men over thirteen years, built lives, shared intimacy, saved money
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: with each one, and then just disappeared. Why why were
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: none of these seven men men apparently committed enough to
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: marry her. Why were none of them seemingly curious enough
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: about her background, her family?
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Why did no one insist on meeting relatives. Why wasn't
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: it a red flag that she apparently had no family
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: attend any of the wedding ceremonies.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: It really makes you wonder about the assumptions we all
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: make when we enter relationships. What do we take on faith,
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: and just how much deception can hide in plain sight
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: when those assumptions aren't questioned. It's a chilling thought about
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: trust and verification, even in our most personal connections.