Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the deep dive. Today, we're heading into Upper Egypt,
specifically so Hag. It's a place where tradition is well everything,
and family reputation can sometimes mean more than the official law.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
And right in the middle of this we have a
really disturbing case. It involves black magic, betrayal and a
pretty grim discovery inside a barrel of concrete.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
And it starts with tension already high. We're talking about
the disappearance of Amal Ahmed Ali. She's forty years old
from a wealthy, respected family in the livestock trade.
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, a big deal in the community, and she vanished
one evening after ten zero pm. The critical part she'd
left home earlier, around six of bero PM, carrying a
lot of the family's gold jewelry, a significant amount.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
So she disappears after ten pm. But what's really striking
is the family's immediate reaction. They panic naturally, but they
don't suspect her. There's no thought that she just ran
off with the goal.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
No, they trusted her completely, and that absolute trust meant
the search started fast and focused. Amal's father in law,
he's seventy three, in Mohamed Abu Ella's a very well
known figure there.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
A real patriarch exactly.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
He leaves the search and they immediately zero in on
the last person Amala was known to have visited. That's
Ahmed Marus, the local sorcerer, quite famous or maybe infamous.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
So the family confronts him. Ahmed, I mean, and he's
just calm as simple story.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Almost too simple. He says, oh, yeah, Amal was here,
but she left my place around eight zero zero pm.
That was two hours after she supposedly arrived. He claimed
he had no idea where she went after that, total ignorance.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
But because of the family's standing, yeah, and there's certainty
that something terrible had happened to Amu, not that she'd fled.
The police actually moved.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
Very quickly, unusually quickly for cases like this sometimes they
got a search warrant for Ahmed Marus's house almost straight away.
And this house, it wasn't just a home, no, it was.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
Basically his office, three stories right, and the first two
floors were all set up for his clients for his
magical services.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Imagine walking in there as an investigator. It must have
been quite something. Ambulance arms, strange books, bits of magical materials,
scattered everywhere, definitely look the part of a sorcerer's den.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
But then in a locked room, a consultation room, amongst
all the usual occult stuff, chairs, couches, they see something
completely jarring, something that just doesn't fit right.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
It's this large metal barrel and it's filled with fresh
concrete mix, still hardening concrete.
Speaker 1 (02:24):
Nothing magical about that, just heavy, physical and deeply suspicious.
It basically stops them in their tracks.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
It immediately became the focus. All the amulets and books
suddenly seemed secondary. This barrel was different.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Okay, So how does someone go from being a teacher,
respected background, all that to this to being the prime
suspect because of a concrete filled barrel in his magic room.
Let's trace that path. Who was Ahmed Maurus before things
went so dark.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Well, his start was pretty conventional. Actually graduated from the
Faculty of Education back in two thousand and one, started
teaching in a village in Sohag. Came from a humble,
decent family.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
So a normal path.
Speaker 2 (03:02):
What changed, money or the lack of it? He apparently
felt really dissatisfied. He saw neighbors, maybe with less education,
doing much better financially through trade his teacher's salary felt inadequate, insulting.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Maybe so the ambition was there early on, but instead
of switching to trade, he went a very different route.
Was it always about the money, the sorcery thing, or
did he believe any of it?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
It seems overwhelmingly cynical. Even back in college, he'd started dabbling,
reading palms, coffee cups for classmates, that sort of thing,
building a small.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Reputation, getting a feel for it.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Yeah, and learning that you don't need to be right
all the time. Just a few good predictions, especially public ones,
and people start to believe you have real power.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
And after teaching for just three years, he saw the potential, big.
Speaker 2 (03:48):
Potential, huge potential. He realized around two thousand and six
that people facing really desperate situations infertility, finding lost relatives,
financial ruin curses, they'd pay almost anything, way more than
teaching ever would.
Speaker 1 (04:02):
So he went all in.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
He did, made it his profession, moved from the simpler
stuff like finding husbands or jobs to more serious, darker
practices causing illness, harm, finding hidden antiquities, eventually specializing in
black magic. Sir oswad and.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
He tried to make it sound technical. You mentioned He
used specific texts like Sham's Al Maharif right.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
He framed it almost academically. He developed this system based
on what practitioners call the science of letters and numbers.
It's a kind of complex numerology, claiming to decode fate
through patterns and texts.
Speaker 1 (04:35):
So he wasn't just some guy chanting. He was positioning
himself as a learned practitioner using his teaching background.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
Maybe exactly. It gave his fraud a veneer of legitimacy.
He was applying knowledge, albeit dark knowledge, and it worked
financially clearly.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Within a year, the humble home is gone, replaced by
a three story mansion. His whole demeanor changes. People described
him as terrifying.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, and even his family, who apparently weren't keen initially,
they came around partly the money partly maybe they were
scared of him too, or believed his power themselves.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
And the services had a price scale obviously.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Oh yes, simple requests needed simple items. But the big stuff,
the powerful magic he claimed, needed servants or gin to
work that had a very specific requirement.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Let me guess gold, large.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
Amounts of gold, he claimed. The gin demanded it loved it.
It was a perfect excuse to demand high value payment,
essentially a justification for theft built into the ritual.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
So if we look at the bigger picture, how did
he keep this up? How did he maintain this illusion,
especially when presumably not everything worked out? You mentioned a network.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
That network was absolutely key. It wasn't just magic, it
was information. He had thieves, informants, people all over the
village feeding him details, family secrets, disputes who was rich,
who was desperate, who was planning to.
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Visit him, which sets up his masterstroke, the theft ruse.
This seems like how he really cemented his reputation.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
It was brilliant in a criminal way. He'd have his
associated thieves steal something valuable, often livestock because that's huge
and Sohag. They'd hide it somewhere specific.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Then the victim comes to Ahmed desperate.
Speaker 2 (06:13):
Exactly, and Ahmed, after some dramatic performance, would reveal the
exact hidden location, sometimes even name a supposed thief, likely
someone unconnected or already an outcast.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
So the victim gets their property back, Ahmed looks like
a miracle worker, and the thieves get their cut. Everyone's happy,
except maybe the person falsely.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
Accused pretty much. It made him seem infallible, a true seer.
His wealth grew and so did the fear and respect
he commanded, which.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Brings us right back to Amal Ahmed Ali, longtime client,
wealthy family, known to carry gold. She sounds like the
perfect target for his biggest con.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
She really was, and her situation became critical. In twenty thirteen,
two of her buffalo were stolen, a huge loss. She
goes to Ahmed and he plays it cool, masterfully. He stalls,
says he doesn't have the right requirements yet for such
a powerful spell, makes her weight, makes her more.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
Desperate, building the pressure, and.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Then then the very next day, a third buffalo gets stolen. Yeah,
you have to assume this was his network, tightening the screws,
deliberate escalation, pushing her over the edge completely. Now she's
in total panic, financially crippled, desperate for a solution, She's
ready to accept whatever he demands, which was the ultimate price,
a huge amount of her family's gold plus a large
(07:31):
cash sum. Only then, he claimed, could he perform the
special session needed to find the thief and end her troubles.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
So she agrees. She gathers the gold the cash, everything
he asks for, and goes back to his.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
House, carrying essentially the price of her own life, though
she didn't know it. She arrived around six pm that
final evening.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Okay, let's go back to that locked room. The police
are there. They've seen the amulets, the books, and then
this barrel of wet concrete happens next.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
They approach it carefully. It's heavy metallic. They notice the
concrete is still fresh, hardening fast. They cap it. The
top sounds muffled, dense, but when they tap near the bottom,
it sounds different, hollow, like there's a space or something
else inside near the base.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
That's not right, something's in there exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
So they decide to make an opening near the bottom,
carefully break through the metal and what comes out blood,
just blood seeping out. Confirmation of the absolute worst fear.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
The order is given immediately and inside inside the hardening concrete,
they found a mal's body. She'd been killed by a
savage blow to the head looks like a cleaver, maybe
a machete, brutal and the gold right layer. In the
same room, the police found the entire cache of gold
and the cash you'd brought for the ritual. The motive
(08:50):
was sitting right there next to the body.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
So they arrest Ahmed. Does he stick to his story?
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Initially yes, denies everything, says anyone could have come into
his offices, maybe left the barrel there, But the investigators
were moving fast. They found a crucial witness, one of
his workers, someone who helped him with manual tasks. This
worker confirmed Ahmed ordered the concrete mix the day before
the body was found, and then, weirdly, Ahmed sent him
(09:16):
home early, saying he'd finished the job himself. Pouring concrete
is heavy work to do alone.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
That's damning the concrete order. Sending the helper away.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
It pinned it right on him, faced with the body,
the gold. The worker's testimony, Ahmed finally confessed.
Speaker 1 (09:30):
What was the sequence? What did he admit to?
Speaker 2 (09:32):
It was chillingly straightforward. I'm all arrived at six pm.
He made sure she had the gold in the money.
Then he attacked her with the axe or machete, killed
her right there. Oh yeah, put her body in the barrel,
poured the concrete over her, And the most disturbing part,
he just went upstairs, back to his family on the
third floor, acted like.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Nothing had happened, just incredible coldness. What was his plan
for the barrel?
Speaker 2 (09:55):
He admitted he needed to wait about three days, let
the concrete fully cure become completely solid rock. Then he
planned to move the barrel and bury it somewhere on
his land, dispose of it permanently.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
But he didn't get the chance.
Speaker 2 (10:08):
No, the only reason his plan failed was the speed
and insistence of Amal's father in law, Mohammed Abu l As.
His influence his refusal to wait pushed the police investigation
forward much faster than Ahmed anticipated.
Speaker 1 (10:21):
They got the warrant and searched the house before the
concrete fully set, before he could move the evidence exactly.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
That quick action, driven by the family's certainty, foiled the
whole thing and the motive.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
It wasn't just greed for the gold, was it? There
was something else?
Speaker 2 (10:35):
Yep, that's right, he revealed. Amal had started complaining recently,
saying his magic wasn't working as well anymore, that the
results were fading.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Ah So she was questioning his power. That's dangerous for someone.
Speaker 2 (10:46):
Like him, extremely dangerous. He feared she'd leave him for
another sorcerer, and worse, maybe start telling people he was
a fraud, so the murder solved too problems for him,
silence the doubter, and get a massive payout, maximum gain,
maximum security for his reputation, or so he thought.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
It really leads to this central paradox, doesn't it. His
whole life, his wealth is power. It was all built
on this complex system of belief in unseen forces, gin, rituals,
special texts, academic even in its own twisted way.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
Yeah, all very elaborate, intellectualized fraud. But the crime itself,
the actual act, it couldn't have been more basic, more
brutally physical and acts and a barrel of concrete.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
The master of supernatural deception resources to the most mundane
physical concealment method imaginable.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
It really exposes the core of it. The complex magic,
the science of letters, the gin, None of it mattered
when it came to committing the actual crime. We're trying
to hide it. He used basic physical violence and basic
physical materials.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
All the supposed power over the unseen world just vanished,
became a very human crime of greed and rage, And.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
The moment real world investigation techniques were applied, witness testimony,
physical evidence, the whole facade just crumbled, instantly, and so I'm.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Ed Maress the teacher turned sorcerer turned millionaire murderer. What
happened to him?
Speaker 2 (12:06):
The verdict was swift, given the evidence, the confession. He
was sentenced to execution for his crimes. A grim men
to a life built on exploiting, belief and desperation.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
It leaves you thinking, doesn't it?
Speaker 2 (12:17):
It really does, And here's something for you to mull over.
All that secret knowledge he supposedly mastered, those dark rituals,
the texts he studied, If any of it held real power,
the kind of power he claimed gave him control over others,
why was it utterly useless in protecting him from the
simple human consequences of his own actions, his own greed.
It makes you think about the real difference between the
(12:38):
power people believe in and the power that actually shapes
our world.