Cairo airport customs foil attempt to smuggle foreign currency

CAIRO - 20 August 2017: Custom officials at Cairo International Airport were able to foil an attempt to smuggle a large amount of foreign currency by a passenger coming from Dubai on Sunday.

An inspection officer was suspicious of an Egyptian passenger coming from the UAE, noting the short period between the arrival and departure, therefore, ordered for his luggage to be checked.

Upon checking the suspect’s laptop bag, a sum of $230,000 and 33,000 UAE dirhams were found inside it. Head of the Central Administration of Passenger Customs Sami Abdulrahman, decided to take legal measures and confiscate the money.

Recently, security checks at the Cairo International Airport were praised by a number of international organizations including the Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) unit of the United Nations and a High-level Russian delegation.

A number of European airlines have banned flights to Egypt and Sharm el-Sheikh city over security concerns following an October 2015 crash of a Russian aircraft in Sinai that resulted in the death of all 224 people on board. Egypt has made a number of upgrades and modifications to the security measures at the airport following that incident.