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Cairo Empress Nabawiya's Drug Trade Strategy · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to picture something. You're in a place
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: where the air is thick with heat, with tension. It
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: smells like dust and maybe you know spices. This is Albatina,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Cairo in the early nineteen eighties.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: In this place, Albertina, it wasn't so a neighborhood. It
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: was in itself a kind of defense mechanism.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: A defense mechanism.
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  Speaker 2: How so, well, it's a labyrinth. It grew that way
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  Speaker 2: over centuries, a completely organic maze of these narrow, winding alleys,
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: sometimes you know, barely wide enough for one person to
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  Speaker 2: squeeze through, right.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: And for years the anti narcotics police would launch these huge,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: very public campaigns to try and stamp out the drug
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  Speaker 1: trade there, but they always failed.
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  Speaker 2: They failed because of the geography. I mean, think about it.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: A police car, which is the backbone of any real raid.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: It gets slowed to a crawl. Sometimes it just gets.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Stuck in that delay, even if it's just a few seconds,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: that's everything.
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  Speaker 2: It's the whole ballgame. It gave dealers just enough time
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  Speaker 2: to dump their stash, melt back into the buildings, and
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: just wow, the police were fighting the terrain itself, and
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: the terrain was winning. Every single time.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: They were only ever catching the small fish exactly.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: But in the middle of all this chaos, a new
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  Speaker 2: kind of power was about to rise and it wasn't
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: from some established criminal. It was a woman.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: And this is our deep dive today, the story of
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Nabowia ab delta Wab, who the underworld would come to
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: know by a much more imposing title of Moulima Mana
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  Speaker 1: the Empress.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what makes her story so compelling is that
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  Speaker 2: she didn't choose this life. It was a sort of
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: an accident. Really, it was born out of tragedy.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's untack this. How does an ordinary woman selling
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: vegetables on a street corner become powerful enough to dictate
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  Speaker 1: international drug prices?
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  Speaker 2: Well, her early life was surprisingly normal. Her father ab
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  Speaker 2: deelt Wab. He was a small time dealer, yes, but
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  Speaker 2: very minor, well liked but.
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  Speaker 1: Not a big shut and Nabowi, or herself, she was.
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  Speaker 2: Kept far away from it. She was smart, beautiful, and
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  Speaker 2: she married a printer. They had four children. By local standards,
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  Speaker 2: it was a totally normal life in a very abnormal place.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Until the bottom just drops out.
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  Speaker 2: Completely a double tragedy. Her husband dies suddenly from a
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: severe illness. She's now a single mother of four, and
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: then almost right after that, her father passes away.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Wow, so she's completely alone.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Facing financial ruin. She had no safety net, so she
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: does the only things she can think of the quickest
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: way to make any money at all. She starts selling
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: fruits and vegetables from a small stall, just a feeder kids,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: just to survive day to day. And this is where timing,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: as always is everything. At this exact moment, these long
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: intense police campaigns finally pay off. They managed to arrest
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: all the major drug lords in Albatina.
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: So the whole power structure is just gone.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: It's a vacuum. The old empire had crumbled, not from
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: a rival, but from the police, and into this vacuum
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: steps Nabowea.
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  Speaker 1: So the environment was basically prime for a new leader.
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  Speaker 2: It was, and one of the few big dealers left,
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  Speaker 2: A guy who had respected her father, sees her situation,
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: He sees how smart she is, how desperate she is,
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  Speaker 2: and he makes her an offer. Forget the vegetables, forget
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  Speaker 2: the vegetables, sell hashish, just small amounts retail for her.
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  Speaker 2: It was pure necessity meeting this one single opportunity.
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  Speaker 1: And this is where it gets interesting, because she doesn't
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  Speaker 1: just become another dealer. She changes the entire game immediately.
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  Speaker 2: She agrees, but she innovates. She'd watched her father's small
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  Speaker 2: business and she understood the one thing that all the
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: big players missed, which was the Attic's number one demand
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: wasn't just getting the product, it was quality. She insisted
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  Speaker 2: on selling only pure, unmixed hashish, and she sold it
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  Speaker 2: at the lowest possible price.
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  Speaker 1: Quality and affordability. Yeah, in a market known for you know,
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  Speaker 1: ripping people.
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  Speaker 2: Off exactly, it was revolutionary. Her reputation just exploded. She
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  Speaker 2: was building a brand, believe it or not, based on trust.
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  Speaker 1: And you said something earlier about that focus on quality
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  Speaker 1: that it would become a problem for her later.
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  Speaker 2: It becomes her greatest vulnerability. Her absolute dedication to quality
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  Speaker 2: as well eventually brings her down, but we'll get to that, okay.
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  Speaker 1: So this initial success allows her to expand rapidly.
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  Speaker 2: She moves beyond the confines of Albatina, sets up a
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  Speaker 2: new Batinia in another area, and she's not just doing
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  Speaker 2: retail anymore. She moves into wholesale big time.
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  Speaker 1: This is the birth of her new identity.
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  Speaker 2: This is when Naboweya Abdeltawab, the vegetable Feller, disappears and
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  Speaker 2: in her place stands al Mulima Mana, the Empress.
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  Speaker 1: But her real genius wasn't just selling a better product.
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  Speaker 1: It was the infrastructure, the security she built that was.
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  Speaker 2: The core of her empire. She knew the police raids
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: would keep coming, so she created a new kind of
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: defense system. She called them al Nadragia.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: Which means the watchmen.
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  Speaker 2: The watchman, and their job was simple surveillance, constant, relentless surveillance.
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  Speaker 2: They'd patrol the surrounding areas, the main roads, every possible
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  Speaker 2: entry point.
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  Speaker 1: So they were basically an early warning system. But why
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  Speaker 1: couldn't the police just arrest them?
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  Speaker 2: Because they never touched the drug. They weren't dealers, you see,
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: they were intelligence operatives. The moment a police car was spotted,
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  Speaker 2: an alert went out, so.
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  Speaker 1: Her dealers had minutes, not seconds, to get away.
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  Speaker 2: It completely changed the game. It made a surprise rate impossible.
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  Speaker 2: But the next layer was even smarter inventory management.
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  Speaker 1: She didn't keep the stash nearby.
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  Speaker 2: Never, she had a network of remote, scattered warehouses. Their
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  Speaker 2: locations were known only to her most trusted inner circle.
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  Speaker 2: So the police could raid a dealer, arrest them, but
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  Speaker 2: they'd find almost nothing. They were catching the employee, not
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: the product, not the capital.
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: It's a brilliant way to break the chain of evidence.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely. By the early nineties, her power was absolute. She
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  Speaker 2: wasn't just part of the market, she was the market.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: She set the price and the quality standard for all
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: hashish coming into Egypt.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: And this power went beyond Egypt's borders, right, I mean
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  Speaker 1: she was dealing with international suppliers.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, and they bowed to her authority. The big dealers
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  Speaker 2: from Lebanon, from Morocco, the major supply hubs. They knew.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: So if they wanted access to the Egyptian market, they
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  Speaker 2: had to go through her.
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  Speaker 1: So how did that work? They had to get her approval.
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  Speaker 2: Literally, they had to submit samples of their product tamna
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  Speaker 2: for her personal inspection. She would test it and only
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  Speaker 2: if it met her standards would she approved the shipment.
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  Speaker 2: Then she would set the price and the quantity allowed
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: into the country.
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  Speaker 1: She would reject entire shipments all the time.
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  Speaker 2: If she thought it was impure, it was sent back.
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  Speaker 2: She was the final word on quality control for an
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: entire nation's illicit drug trade.
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  Speaker 1: It's just the sheer audacity is incredible, and you could
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: see why law enforcement was so frustrated.
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: Oh they were pulling their hair out, and her confidence
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: was just off the charts. There's a famous story where
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: she directly challenged a senior anti narcotics officer.
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  Speaker 1: What does she say?
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  Speaker 2: She told him that if he ever ever managed to
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  Speaker 2: find her hidden warehouses, she would personally commission a solid
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  Speaker 2: gold statue of him.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: Wow, that's not just confidence, that's arrogance.
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  Speaker 2: And on top of all this, she had the community
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  Speaker 2: on her side. She had a local shield. She was
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: known to be generous. She'd help families with their problems,
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  Speaker 2: pay for medical bills. You know, she built genuine loyalty.
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  Speaker 2: It wasn't just fear. People actually liked her. No one
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  Speaker 2: was going to inform on the woman who was helping
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  Speaker 2: keep the community afloat.
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  Speaker 1: So how do you even begin to take down an
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  Speaker 1: operation like that. It's not just a criminal enterprise, it's
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  Speaker 1: woven into the social fabric.
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  Speaker 2: A conventional raid was useless. They knew that brute force
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  Speaker 2: wasn't the answer. They needed a plan that was as
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  Speaker 2: smart as deceptive.
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  Speaker 1: As she was an infiltration.
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  Speaker 2: A very very clever one. They got an officer to
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  Speaker 2: go deep undercover. He posed as a powerful Lebanese drug
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  Speaker 2: merchant who wanted to set up shop in Egypt, and
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  Speaker 2: of course he claimed he needed the blessing of the
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  Speaker 2: Empress to do so.
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  Speaker 1: It's the perfect bait. It plays right into her ego,
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  Speaker 1: her control. She took it.
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  Speaker 2: She was so confident in her system she couldn't resist
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  Speaker 2: the chance to vet a new major player. But true
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  Speaker 2: to form, she demanded one thing before to any partnership.
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  Speaker 1: Let me guess. She needed to see the product.
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  Speaker 2: She needed a sample. She had to personally test the quality.
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  Speaker 2: And that right there was her fatal flaw. The very
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  Speaker 2: professionalism that built her empire was about to destroy it.
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  Speaker 1: So they set up a meeting for the sample delivery.
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  Speaker 2: They set the time and the place, and they arrested
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  Speaker 2: her at the exact moment she was physically receiving that
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  Speaker 2: small sample. That was it. That was the direct link.
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  Speaker 1: They needed, just a tiny piece of evidence, but it
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  Speaker 1: was enough.
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  Speaker 2: It directly tied her to possession. The news of her
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: capture sent a shockwave through the entire region. The Empress was.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Caught, but did they ever find the warehouses, the ones
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: she'd offered to build the statue over.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: Nope, To this day, they never found them. Her logistical
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: system remained a secret. But because they only caught her
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: with that small sample, her sentence was lighter than.
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  Speaker 1: You'd expect, only ten years.
• 8:50
  Speaker 2: Ten years, and even in prison, her intelligence, her charisma,
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  Speaker 2: it shone through. She quickly became a respected figure among
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  Speaker 2: the inmates.
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  Speaker 1: She had encounters with a few celebrities in there, didn't
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: she She did.
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  Speaker 2: The artist Magda el Kati was being bullied by other prisoners.
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: Mana just declared el kat was under her protection and
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: it stopped instantly.
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  Speaker 1: And Fifi Abdu, the dancer and actress right.
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  Speaker 2: Abdu was filming a movie scene at the prison, met
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  Speaker 2: Mona and was completely charmed by her. They became close friends.
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  Speaker 2: It just shows her power was personal, not just criminal.
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  Speaker 1: But something else happened in prison, a real change.
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  Speaker 2: A total transformation. She had a lot of time to think,
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  Speaker 2: and she came to a realization. She decided to genuinely repent,
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  Speaker 2: to leave the drug trade behind for good.
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  Speaker 1: Do you think it was a real change of heart
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  Speaker 1: or just another strategic move.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: I think it was real because it fits her pattern.
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  Speaker 2: It was the ultimate strategic conclusion. She realized that no
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: matter how smart you are, no matter how perfect your
• 9:47
  Speaker 2: system is, if you're in the criminal world, the endgame
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: is always prison.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: So choosing to repent was just the smartest move left
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  Speaker 1: on the board.
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  Speaker 2: It was her final and most intelligent strategic decision. She
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: applied her intellect to choosing a new.
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  Speaker 1: Path, and when she was released, the locals welcomed.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Her back with huge celebrations. They remembered her generosity. The
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: Empress was home, but she wasn't the Empress anymore.
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: So when you look back at her whole story, what
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: does it tell you. We followed this journey from a
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: vegetable cellar to this unchallenged crime lord.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: It shows that intelligence, raw intellect, is just a tool. It
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: has no morality. It can be used to build an
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: impenetrable criminal empire, or it can be used to tear
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: it all down and choose something different.
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  Speaker 1: A really fascinating deep dive.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: And here's a final thought for you. Mena's empire wasn't
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: brought down by a bigger gang or a more violent
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: police raid. It was brought down by her own high standards,
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: her obsession with quality, control was the one vulnerability they
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: could exploit to finally catch her. Her greatest strength was
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: also her greatest weakness.