Start of embezzlement

On December 7, 1998, Egyptian national Yasser Refaat Ouweis was appointed as assistant accountant at the Lebanese Embassy in Cairo. Hisham Dimashqiyah served as Lebanon’s ambassador to Cairo at the time. Later in 2001, the new ambassador, Sami Qronfol, asked the National Bank of Egypt, where the embassy’s account was, to transfer the consular revenues for the first quarter of 2001 to the Lebanese State treasury. The bank transferred an amount worth USD 222,000 but it turned out that there were roughly USD 6500 missing from the funds deposited at the bank and those transferred to the treasury. In 2003, a sum worth roughly USD 13,000 also appeared to be lacking.

Ambassador Qronfol reported difficulties in converting the revenues from Egyptian Pound to US Dollar in order to carry out the transfer to the order of the Lebanese treasury. He suggested the payment of the consular services in USD but his proposition was greeted with discontent from Egypt’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. When Abdul Lateef Mamlouk took office as Ambassador to Cairo in September 2013, he moved the embassy’s account to Jammal Trust Bank, which expressed willingness to transfer the funds in USD without any complications or delay.

Ongoing embezzlement

Evidence of fraud was also found in 2004 when USD 11,000 were transferred from the embassy’s expenditure dollar account to its account in Egyptian pounds, but the statements showed that no such transaction ever occurred. Other amounts in Egyptian pounds worth USD 33,000 and USD 75,000 respectively were stolen in the same manner.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs transferred sums totaling USD 29,000 to the embassy’s expenditure account to cover Lebanon’s contribution to a number of Arab organizations, all of which also went unpaid. Similarly, a transferred amount of USD 61,000 was found missing from the expenditure account and the income account recorded a shortage of 368,590 Egyptian pounds, translating roughly to USD 60,000 in 2005 and 2006.

Check fraud

In addition to embezzlement operations, the assistant accountant committed cheque fraud, by altering letters and digits in certain cheques signed and approved for cashing by the head of the mission. Statements indicated that the assistant accountant had obtained USD 102,000 from five cheques which actually were worth only USD 4,235, thus withholding fraudulently roughly USD 98,000.

Unlawful operations went on for four years until the officials at the Embassy finally found out about them in 2007 and initiated legal action against the employee who was charged with embezzlement.

Total funds embezzled

Embezzlement investigations conducted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Emigrants revealed that USD 240,000 and EGP 7.5 million (roughly USD 1.2 million in total) were appropriated fraudulently between September 1, 2003 and May 8, 2007, i.e. a total of USD 1.440 million.

Fraud was committed for four consecutive years under three different ambassadors and a chargé d’affaires who all share part of the responsibility for failure to practice auditing and accountability. Public funds have gone with the wind and with it the verdict sentencing the corrupt employee to three years in prison after he paid a bail of 10,000 Egyptian pounds.