The joke goes like this: An Egyptian official is teaching an American official how to be truly corrupt, to the point of absurdity. The Egyptian asks the American, “How do you embezzle public funds?” The American replies, “You see that bridge over there? It costs $10 million to build, but we record it as $50 million.” The Egyptian smiles and says, “You see that bridge over there?” The American looks confused and says, “But there’s no bridge there!” The Egyptian proudly responds, “Exactly. We wrote in the records that it cost $50 million.”
Believe it or not, dear reader, this isn’t just a joke—it actually happened!
At the beginning of Mubarak's presidency, he decided to build the Cairo Metro. Numerous committees were formed, one of the most important being the committee responsible for purchasing modern tunneling equipment from Europe. The committee decided to buy the latest excavation crane (or "winch") from a French company. An official traveled to France, purchased it, and arranged for another company to ship it to Egypt. The crane arrived, was integrated into the project, and assigned two drivers, a supervisor, and a maintenance committee because it was the most advanced tunneling crane in the world. It worked from 1983 until the 1992 earthquake.
After the earthquake, a new engineer at the Metro Authority was tasked with locating the crane to help rescue people trapped under the rubble. To his shock, he discovered the crane didn’t exist! Stunned, he immediately filed a theft report at the police station.
The news spread, and it became the talk of the nation. The media questioned how such a massive machine, supposedly stationed in Tahrir Square, could vanish in broad daylight. People were bewildered: how could such a giant piece of equipment, as shown in photos, just disappear without anyone noticing?
Fast forward 30 years. By coincidence, an Egyptian engineer who had worked for the Metro Authority and was later transferred to the Alexandria Port came across a ship owned by the company that had supposedly shipped the crane from France to Egypt. While chatting with the captain about this bizarre incident, the captain revealed that the company had never been to Egypt before—this was their first trip!
This revelation prompted the engineer to dig deeper. He contacted the French company that manufactured the crane to verify the story from 30 years ago. The company confirmed that an Egyptian official had indeed negotiated with them, but he vanished without completing the purchase.
The situation was mind-boggling, almost impossible to believe. All the official paperwork was in order: the drivers' attendance sheets, maintenance records, oil change receipts, and repair invoices. The engineer collected all his evidence and approached a well-known journalist at the time, Samir Ragab—a figure comparable to Mustafa Bakri or Ahmed Moussa today.
Samir examined the documents and confirmed the engineer’s findings: the crane had never existed in the first place! But instead of exposing the scandal, Samir—being a complicit journalist—used the story to blackmail the government. Fearing an international embarrassment over such legendary corruption, the government caved in. They appointed him as chairman of a major press institution, and the documents vanished overnight.
And here we are, still searching for the "stolen" crane.
Can you imagine?
