CAIRO: Cairo airport customs apprehended three Egyptian passengers who arrived from Sharjah, UAE and were headed to Sharm el-Sheikh on board of a domestic flight on Saturday, December 10. The passengers were carrying 16 bags full of iPads, iPhones and memory cards. Head of Customs Mohamed Fathy suspected the three passengers, Mohamed Saleh, Khaled Adel and Ahmed Mohamed, and inspected their bags. He found 139 iPads, 300 iPhones and 78,000 memory cards in the bags. Investigations with the three defendants revealed one of them had been arrested last week for carrying 21,000 memory cards, which were put under custody and released after reconciliation. The passengers admitted they had bought the devices to sell them and take advantage of price differences between Sharjah and Cairo. Manager of the Central Department at Cairo airport customs Hanna Shehata ordered the devices be put under custody and legal procedures taken against the passengers. Some smugglers resort to smuggling goods through domestic flights by using Cairo airport as a transit before flying on to a different city. Smugglers tend to use this method to escape customs inspections, despite customs officers at Cairo airport recently seizing many of them.
