CAIRO/FAYOUM: At first it looked like a stick held aloft, perhaps a stick for walking with. As we approached across the sand, the outline became clear: it was a Kalashnikov assault rifle in the Bedouin s hand, held high as a sign of warning.
He was shouting now, telling us to stop, then turning to his friends and warning them of our approach. Another Kalashnikov appeared, and another. As we reached the cluster of off-road vehicles parked up in the desert, Ahmed, my driver, opened the door, one hand on the wheel, the other in the sky, palm outwards.
I m a Bedouin! I m a Bedouin! he shouted, and slowly brought the vehicle to a halt in the dust. The rifle was lowered and aimed directly at us. Ahmed got out; I waited for the bang.
This is no hidden valley in the mountains of Sinai. This is the Cairo-Fayoum highway on a Sunday afternoon. Just a couple of hundred meters from the road, where the Western Desert begins, heavily-armed Bedouin drug traders have set up shop, selling heroin to local addicts. They have parked their vehicles in clear view of the road, and are dealing to a steady trickle of junkies arriving by car, motorbike and on foot. They buy their fix, smoke it or shoot up, and then disappear into the dusk. All the while ordinary people drive past apparently oblivious.
The existence of drug gangs in the rugged mountains of Sinai is common knowledge, as is the government’s on-going program of crop eradication there. But the gangs’ arrival on the edge of Cairo is a recent development, and one which raises a number of questions for both law enforcement and public safety.
According to Brigadier Gamal Farouk of the government’s key drug enforcement agency, the Anti-Narcotics General Administration (ANGA), the appearance of heavily-armed gangs so close to the capital is a relatively new phenomenon, first noted five or six years ago.
Despite their long years of experience in the field, the ANGA has a serious job on its hands in tracking the criminals and bringing them to justice.
“They don’t stay in one place, said Farouk. “They park far from the road and watch with binoculars to see if the police are coming. They change location often to avoid being caught … So they are hard to find.
“The main thing is to try to get some of the Bedouin to become spies inside the gangs, so they can inform us of the locations of future meetings and we can find them.
The last successful operation against such a group, he said, was in Bilbeis near Sharqeya in 2006 or 2007, at which time several dealers were arrested. The operation involved a fire-fight between gang members and the police, which raises another problem.
Exchanges of gunfire between police and Bedouin gangs are not unknown in the mountains of Sinai, which is where the bulk of Egypt’s heroin poppy crop is produced. ANGA operations there involve the destruction of crops and the damaging of the soil to reduce future yields. Moving through the rugged terrain in search of the hidden valleys in which poppies are grown, police often come under fire, said Farouk. Attempts at arresting those involved sometimes end in shoot-outs. The stiff penalties for those convicted of involvement in drugs crime mean the gangs are all the more inclined to battle it out.
But the prospect of such gun battles taking place so close to urban population centers and busy roads is a worrying one. Considering the risks to innocent passers-by, not to mention the police themselves, it is perhaps not surprising if the police prove reluctant to conduct raids on the gangs in their new areas of operation.
The spread of the gangs beyond the Suez Canal may also be a sign that they are comforted by the lack of success of the authorities in cracking down on their activities as a whole.
According to figures from the US State Department, 98 hectares of poppy plants were destroyed in 2006. But as Farouk admitted, the program has had limited success, with poppy yields often increasing year-on-year, despite attempts at eradication.
The ANGA’s own statistics reveal that the amount of heroin seized in Egypt has gone up from 58 kg in 2006 to 87 kg in 2007. But it is not clear whether the increase represents an improvement in the effectiveness of anti-narcotics operations or an increase in the activity of the gangs.
For Ahmed, the driver, the existence of gangs so close to a busy road is evidence of police corruption. They would not be able to ply their trade so brazenly otherwise, he argues.
As a former heroin addict himself, he is familiar with the life of drug dependency, and visited the roadside gangs many times in his quest for a fix. Now free of the drug for several years, he claims the activities of the dealers are tolerated by the local police in return for a bribe.
“When I finally stopped taking heroin, I was so disgusted with what was happening that I went to the local police station to make a report. It’s just 300 meters down the road, he says.
“I went there and said there were people dealing in the desert by the road.
The man at the station said, ‘Yeah, we know.’ So, if the policeman at the desk knows, you can be sure his boss knows. But the Bedouin pay some money, and nobody does anything.
Ahmed’s claim is fiercely contested by Farouk. “The officers working in the anti-drugs area are very honest and professional, he says. “You have to forget this idea of police officers taking money.
According to the Egypt section of the US State Department’s current report of on drugs worldwide, “a limited number of low-level police officials who were involved in narcotics-related activity or corruption have been identified and arrested. Previous reports from the State Department said that the US had not encountered any evidence of corruption within the ANGA.
Back by the highway, Ahmed is negotiating with the men with rifles, attempting to convince them of his genuine Bedouin credentials. After reeling off the names of some mutual acquaintances, the weapons are lowered and the scowls are replaced with smiles. Pumpkin seeds are handed out by a cheerful young man with a kefeya covering his face, and we are offered an array of produce: “Heroin? Brown sugar? Bango?
Around us, the addicts are coming and going, applying tourniquets to their arms before injecting. A mini-bus contains half a dozen men sharing needles, while a short distance away a woman waits patiently with her young child.
As we return to the road, Ahmed is clearly upset. “You know, I would never betray my Bedouin friends, he says. “But these people are different. I would betray them in a second because they are dealing in misery.
