Latest / Crime Night / The Scent of Betrayal: How a Fake Saint, a Dark Web "Red Room," and a 15-Year-Old Producer Orchestrated the Shubra El-Kheima Murder

Transcript

The Scent of Betrayal: How a Fake Saint, a Dark Web "Red Room," and a 15-Year-Old Producer Orchestrated the Shubra El-Kheima Murder · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's start this deep dive. We're setting the scene
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: and Esbetoffman a really tight knit neighborhood in Shubra el Kaima, Egypt.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: The time is April twenty twenty.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Four, right, and for seven days there's this palpable anxiety
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: hanging over the community. A fifteen year old boy, Ahmed
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: Mohammed sad he's vanished.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: It's gone. And while the official investigation is kind of
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: slow to start, something else starts to creep in, something physical.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: You had a smell, a really foul odor getting stronger
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: and stronger.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: And it's coming from one specific apartment, an apartment rented
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: by someone the community thought they knew that's smell.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: It really became the turning point, didn't it. It forced people
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: to confront something they couldn't ignore anymore. It shattered the
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: illusion around this neighbor.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: And revealed this wasn't just a local missing person case.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: This was something much darker, with connections stretching unbelievably to
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: the dark web.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Exactly a local tragedy, yes, but with these chilling global implications,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: orchestrated by someone they trusted.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: So our mission today is to really unpack the layers here,
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: the deception, the manipulation. How a figure who seemed well
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: respected became an anonymous killer.
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: It's genuinely one of the most disturbing cases to come
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: out of the region. The psychological game played here is
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: something else.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: It really is. And you mentioned the calculation involved. Let's
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: talk about the man at the center of this Tarik
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: right trek.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: He's in his late twenties. He only showed up in
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: the neighborhood about four months before Ahmed.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Disappeared, so a relative newcomer completely.
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: No one knew his family, his history, nothing. He was
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: basically a blank slate.
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: And he used that anonymity incredibly effectively.
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: Oh absolutely, he understood the community religious, close knit, and
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: he played right into it well by faking vulnerability.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: A masterclass in exploiting empathy. As you said, how did
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: you do it?
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Two key lies working together. First, he claimed he was
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: battling severe cancer, said he was treating it himself.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: Which immediately creates sympathy. Explains maybe odd behavior absences precisely.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: And it also explained why he, supposedly an electrician, was
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: working as a simple assistant in a local coffee shop.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Financial hardship.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: You see, Okay, that makes sense. And the second lie piety.
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: He presented himself as deeply religious, always ready with advice
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: on faith, on good conduct, constantly talking the talk.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: So he's the devout man suffering silently. It's a powerful image.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Incredibly powerful. It deflected questions. I mean, claiming serious illness
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: like cancer, self treating in such a close community. That
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: feels risky, right.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you'd think someone might challenge.
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: That, But the piety acted like a shield, had the
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: supposed financial hardship preventing proper care, and people just accepted it.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: Skepticism evaporated when faced with this image of a saintly
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: struggling man.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: And this image really resonated with the local kids, especially Ahmed.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: Yes, particularly Ohmed, the fifteen year old victim he looked
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: up to. Terrek saw him as this role model, someone
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: overcoming terrible adversity while staying devout. A hero figure almost
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: knew this.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: He focused on the children, he did.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: He offered mentorship advice, you know, focus on your studies,
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: stay away from bad influences. Sounds good, right, protective.
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Very much so, fatherly almost.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: And he backed it up with little gifts money for
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Ahmed to use at the PlayStation shop things like that,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: cementing the bond crucially.
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: Ahmed would then go home and tell his family about
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: Tarik's kindness, his.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Advice exactly, providing Tarek with a constant stream of positive
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: reinforcement within the family. He was using the boy's own
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: trust to build his immunity within the community. It's chillingly smart.
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, But this carefully constructed image. It starts to crack,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: doesn't it. The financial hardship story, specifically, it does.
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: Things begin to shift. Tarek starts taking these unexplained breaks
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: from his coffee shop job, two weeks at a time,
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: and the excuse was more cancer treatment intensive sessions, he claimed.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: But looking back with what we know now, these weren't treatment.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Sessions almost certainly, it seems much more likely this was
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: well him proving himself, building a portfolio, maybe demonstrating his
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: capabilities to whoever was pulling the strings behind the scenes.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: Wow, okay. And then comes a really dramatic change after
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: one of these absences.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: A complete transformation. Yeah, he returns, but he's no longer
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: the struggling assistant. He's got a new car, a new phone, expensive.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: Clothes that must have raised eyebrows. How did he explain.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: That another lie ready to go, his wealthy brother had
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: suddenly passed away. He said he'd inherited.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: A fortune, just like that convenient very, And.
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: He seamlessly transitioned. Yeah, he went from being an employee
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: at the coffee shop to being a generous patron, buying
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: drinks for people, flashing the cash a bit.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: And this new wealth, it didn't shatter his image.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: No, strangely, it almost reinforced it. Now he was the devout, generous,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: wealthy man who had overcome tragedy. It gave him this
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: final layer of perceived respectability.
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Which maybe gave him the confidence or the cover he
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: needed for the next step.
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: It seems that way. It insulated him from suspicion, let
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: him operate right up until the final act.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: April fifteenth, twenty twenty four, the day Ahmed disappears.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: Yes, by eight point zero zero pm that evening, his
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: family is frantic searching everywhere, and Terrek is right there
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: playing the part of the concerned neighbor, outwardly helping with
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: the search, showing concern.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: But the truth starts to emerge with surveillance footage.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Right CCTV is crucial here. It tracks Ahmed's movements the
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: PlayStation shop, then meeting Terrek at the coffee shop.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: And the last sighting, the.
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: Critical footage Ahmed walking away with Terrek and then they
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: both vanished from camera view. Nothing more so.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: When the police inevitably talked.
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: To Terrek, he sticks to a calculated denial, claims he
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: just ran into Ahmed by chance. They spoke for a moment,
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: then he went off on an errand said he only
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: learned Ahmed was muling later a total lie.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: But the police investigation it didn't immediately focus on him.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: Well, initially treated as a standard missing person case. There's
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: that procedural delay, you know, the waiting period before escalating things.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: Frustrating for the family, I imagine terribly.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: But investigators kept digging, review more CCTV and they spot
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: something interesting from two days before Ahmed disappeared. What was
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: that Terrek entering.
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: A pharmacy okay, and what did he buy?
• 6:20
  Speaker 2: Not just aspirin? He bought an anesthetic or some kind
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: of narcotic substance plus gauze and cotton.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: That sounds premeditated.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: It certainly looks that way.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: Though interestingly, when neighbors heard about this later, some initially
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: tried to explain it away, Wow, connecting it back to
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: his fake cancer. Maybe it was for his self treatment,
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: they suggested. They were still trying to make his story fit,
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: still protecting that image.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: Incredible, the power of that constructed persona.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: But the police weren't buying it. They saw preparation. Terrek
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: had the means to incapacitate someone.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: And then a week passes since Ahmed's disappearance, seven days.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: Seven days, and that smell from Tarrek's apartment it's become unbearable, overpowering.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: So the neighbors, driven by this awful smell and growing dread,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: they decide they can't weigh it.
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: No, they enter the apartment and the scene they find
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: it's just horrific, beyond comprehension. Ahmed's body is on the bed,
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: brutally disfigured. It had been sliced open length twise. All
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: the internal features were gone, the body was unrecognizable, Oh Mike,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: and nearby a sealed black bag. Police later confirmed it
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: contained the boy's organs.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: So Tarrek is arrested immediately right there, and he confesses,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: but his initial confession his motive, it's another lie, isn't this.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: His first story is that he did it for money
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: five million Egyptian pounds, said it was for an organized
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: human organ trafficking ring with a contact basing kuoit directing.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Him organ trafficking. It sounds like a plausible, if grim
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: criminal motive.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: It does, and maybe it's a standard cover story they're
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: told to use, but the forensic evidence it completely demolishes
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: that story instantly.
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: How so what did the medical examination show?
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: Well, first, this was not a surgical removal of organs
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: for transplants, not even close. The victim ahmed, heavy, tortured, crtard, yes,
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: and the incisions they are crude, violent, not the work
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: of someone trying to preserve organs. There's no medical equipment found,
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: just signs of utter brutality.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: What kind of injuries are we talking about?
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: The neck was slit, the body cut open lengthwise as
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: we said, and the major organ's heart, liver, kidneys just
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: ripped out and put in that bag.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: So not organ harvesting. What was it?
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Then? That's when terror cracks again. He admits the organ
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: story was fake. The real reason it's somehow even more
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: disturbing go on. He says he was directed by someone
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: he met online and accomplice. And get this, the accomplice
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: is a fifteen year old Egyptian student living in Kuwait, a.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: Fifteen year old the same age as the victim, orchestrating
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: this from Kuwait.
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  Speaker 2: Unbelievable, isn't It reframes everything. This wasn't about the organs themselves.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: So why remove them? What was the point?
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: The point was the performance, the spectacle. Terrek was instructed
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: by this teenager in Kuwait to carry out the killing
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: and the dismemberment while on a live video call, streaming it,
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  Speaker 2: streaming the entire horrific event moment by moment, so the
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: accomplishing Kuwait could watch it happen and record it.
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: Dear God, for what purpose?
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: This leads us directly into the darkest corners of the Internet.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: The motive wasn't organ trafficking. It was content creation, sickening content.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: We know the organ story was a lie because after
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Tarik did what he did, the contact in Kuwait apparently
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: told him the Organs were quote.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: Unsuitable, unsuitable after all that exactly.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: And then immediately tried to pressure Terek into finding a
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: second victim for more money. It proves the organs themselves
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: were never the point.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: The point was the act itself, the recording.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: Precisely, this is the world of so called red rooms.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: It's a term used on the dark web for essentially
• 9:58
  Speaker 2: live stream torture and order pay per view horror monetized
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: through anonymous channels.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: So the teenager in Kuwait wasn't just an accomplice, He
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: was a producer, a director.
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Effectively, yes, generating this horrific video content to sell online,
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: linking directly to global organized crime models that profit from
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: extreme violence. The violence is the product.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: And Tarik's earlier behavior, those two weak disappearances, the sudden wealth.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: It all clicks into place now, doesn't it terribly?
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: So he likely wasn't getting cancer treatment. He was probably auditioning,
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: performing smaller acts, maybe on animals, maybe something else. We
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: don't know for sure, but proving he was capable, proving
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: he'd follow through.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Proving he was worth a five million pound contract. He
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: didn't just get hired, He had to earn the role
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: of murderer.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: It appears that way he vetted himself for the job.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: And the dark web provides the platform for all this.
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: It provides the anonymity, the untraceable payment methods using cryptocurrency
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: and the global marketplace needed to make this industry function
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: and generate huge sums of money.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: So the investigation didn't stop.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: With Terrek No and went international. Very quickly, Interpool got involved.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: Cooperation between Egypt and Kuwait was.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: And they found the teenager in Kuwait.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: They did the fifteen year old student and interestingly, his
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: father were both arrested.
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: The father was involved.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: Apparently the teenager had used his father's personal phone for
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: some of the communication with Trek, which implicated him. Both
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: were extradited back to Egypt to face charges.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: And this wasn't the teenager's first time orchestrating.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Something like this, investigations suggests not. It seems he had
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: coordinated similar crimes or attempted to in other countries, using
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: the exact same horrific method, directing someone locally to commit
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: murder and dismemberment, recording it all presumably for sale online.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: A system, a repeatable, horrifying system.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Built on exploiting vulnerable people like Terrek, finding victims like Ahmed,
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: and leveraging the anonymity of the dark web.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: It's just the ultimate betrayal, isn't it. Ahmed tried trusted
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: this man, the community trusted him, and he was just
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: an instrument, a paid performer for this global network profiting
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: from death.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: It really lays baret terrifying vulnerability. How easily can these isolated,
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: trusting communities become hunting grounds for predators operating from the
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: darkest hidden corners of the Internet is a deeply unsettling question.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: And the sheer coldness of the orchestrator, the fifteen year
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: old in Kuwait, the investigation found he even obtained photos
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: of Ahmed with Terek beforehand.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: To confirm the target. He knew exactly who Ahmed was.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: He then watched him die in real time.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Recorded it, and immediately pushed Terek to find another victim,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: almost like it was just business.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: Complete detachment, planning, execution, and then looking for the next transaction,
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: all apparently driven by a desire for online notoriety and profit.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: It leaves you with a truly chilling thought. What happens
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: to society when our absolute worst impulses, our most depraved
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: actions can be professionally produced, monetized, and broadcast to an
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: anonymous global audience.