Кражи из сейфа в Египте Safe theft in Egypt

Dear compatriots! I would like to share with you my story and experience gained while on vacation in the Arab state of Egypt, the city of Hurghada at the Albatros White Beach (Hurgada) - 5 * hotel, where money was substituted (theft) from the safe. I am writing this to you so that you can protect yourself and do the right thing if you find yourself in such an unpleasant situation. When this situation happened to my family, I could not get complete information anywhere on how to proceed: not from the travel agency from which I purchased a voucher for a vacation in Ukraine, not from the host country in the state of Egypt, the Join UP tour operator, not from the media and not in the reviews of tourists. Therefore, I share my experience.
It was not the first time I went to Egypt to rest, and there have never been such troubles.
I purchased two vouchers (a family of 4, two rooms) for a vacation in the city of Lutsk (Ukraine) at the Welcome tour travel agency at the Albatros White Beach Hotel (Hurgada) - 5 * in the period from 21.07. 2016 to 01.08. 2016, host in Egypt (Hurghada) tour operator Join UP.

On 21.07. 2016 in the evening at 18 hours 55 minutes from the airport of Lviv, we, as a whole family, flew by plane to the airport of Hurghada, where we were met by the host: a representative of the tour operator Join UP, who took us by bus to the Albatros White Beach Hotel . The hotel gave us two rooms 3422 (accommodated son and daughter) and 3423 (accommodated me and my wife). In the rooms, my wife and I took things out of the suitcases and put them in the cabinets. Documents: passports, vouchers, plane tickets, insurance I put in a file. Money in the amount of 2600 (two thousand six hundred) US dollars was put into the wallet. Then he put the file and the wallet in the backpack, and the backpack was placed in the safe, which is equipped with an electric combination lock.
I set a six-digit code on the safe, with which I closed the safe. I took such a large amount of money on a trip due to the fact that before the trip to Egypt, my son was operated on in a few days and the stitches were only removed, so I needed money for any unforeseen event (health deterioration and so on). I didn’t take a bank card, because I heard about various frauds with cards in Egypt.
On July 24.2016, on the coast of the Albatros White Beach Hotel, from a representative of the PARADISE company, I purchased an excursion for my family “Walk on the sea on a yacht” for 120 US dollars, which should take place on July 27.2016 from 8 hours 30 minutes until about 1.00 o'clock.
On July 27.2016, at about 7:40 am, my wife and children took the necessary things from the rooms and went to have breakfast in a restaurant. Before leaving, I checked that the safe was closed, and then pressed the electric button on the wall "Make Up" in order to clean the room.
Having breakfast at about 8:10 am, my wife and daughter went into the room at the request of the child, and my son and I went to the seashore. The room is located along the way from the restaurant to the seashore. About 10-15 minutes later my wife and daughter came up. We received fins and masks from the PARADISE company and went along the pier to the yacht. During the tour, we held a family photo-video session. They promised to give us the disks with photos and videos the same evening at the hotel reception at 2.00 o'clock. We returned from the tour at about 5:50 pm, handed over the previously received masks and fins and headed to the hotel. My wife went to the children's room to help unpack their things, and I went to my room. After taking a shower, I put on my things and decided to open the safe in order to take money to pay for the disk on which the photo and video recording of our family excursion was made. I entered the code for the safe and opened it. Then he took out a wallet with money from his backpack.

When I took it out, I saw that the wallet was not fastened with Velcro. This aroused my suspicion, since I always close it with Velcro. I decided to count the money. The money in the purse was not in order - this alarmed me even more, since I always put money in order. Taking out the bills, I started counting. The amount turned out to be correct, the one that should remain 2400 (two thousand four hundred) US dollars. During the money count, I did not like that some bills stuck together. I began to examine them better and saw that the paper from which the money was made was of different densities, there was no money protection on the banknotes, and a corner was drawn in the upper right corners of the banknotes. Although, before the trip to Egypt, I myself personally put money in a wallet with a face value of 100 (one hundred) US dollars, and they were real. I realized that the banknotes are fake and most likely are photocopies of cash.
I counted 1.500 (one thousand five hundred) US dollars of such counterfeit bills, and 900 (nine hundred) US dollars are normal. The change of money in the safe was most likely made at the time when we were on the tour. Because the day before, I gave my son 100 (one hundred) US dollars to buy souvenirs and all the bills were real and were in order in my wallet. Seeing this situation, I was very upset, told my wife and in a fit of anger went to the hotel reception to report what had happened. Arriving at the reception of the Albatros White Beach Hotel at 18:35, I told the managers: Ahmed Shawky, Haitham Adel, Sherif Mohamed, Reda abd elsamad, that in my room today 07/27/2016 during the day during my absence in banknotes were replaced in the safe with a total amount of 1500 (one thousand five hundred) US dollars and showed them the banknotes. Then he asked them to call the general manager of the hotel, a representative of the tourist operator Joyne Up and the police to the reception.
They called the representative of Joint Up immediately, but refused to call the police. They said that when the representative of Joyne Up arrives, then he will call the police. This angered me, and I nevertheless began to insist on calling the police. Then they brought me a guard in a white uniform, who was standing at the entrance to the hotel, and said: here is the police for you. I was indignant and said that it was not the police. Then the general manager of the Albatros White Beach hotel “Mr. Hany Abdelshafy Elzayat” approached me and started shouting at me in very raised tones, either in English or in Arabic. From all that he shouted, I understood that if they called the police, then I would be in big trouble. But I still insisted on calling the police. They never called the police. At 19:50, a representative of the Joint Up company, Mohamed Hussien, arrived at the hotel. At the entrance, he was immediately met by one of the managers, I don’t remember who, and talked to him about something for about 10 minutes.
Seeing this, I approached the representative of the company and expressed my dissatisfaction to him, that he immediately approached not me, but the hotel manager. It was impossible not to notice me, as I stood near the reception desk and continued to demand that the police be called. Then I told the representative of the company Joyne Ap Mohammed about everything that had happened and asked to call the police. Mohammed began to convince me that there was no need to call the police, that it was better to forget about the stolen money, and if we call the police, then according to the hotel’s general manager Hani, who told him about this, we would only get trouble. Then he offered to take a scanner and see who came into my room during the day. I refused to do it myself and offered to do it together with the police and insisted that he call the police.

At 2:00 pm at the reception, we were told that the police had arrived and we needed to go to the office of the senior manager.
In the office, I saw our representative from the Joint Up Company, Mohammed Hussein, and a citizen unknown to me before, sitting near a large long table. How and when he went to the hotel I did not see. Mohammed said that this was a police officer and he needed to be explained. Then I asked this man to provide identification documents that he is a police officer. He told me that there were no documents. Then I said that I did not know with whom I would talk and I would not give evidence. Then the policeman told me to go to the police station. At first I agreed and even went outside to go with the police, but I asked this man if he would give me his ID at the police station. He said he didn't have an ID. Then I refused to go, and we returned back to the office.
During the conversation, the chief manager of the hotel Hany Abdeishafy Elzayat entered the office, with whom the police officer officer Karim Mustafa (as he introduced himself) friendly hugged as close friends. For about 10 minutes they talked about something in Arabic. Then another man in civilian clothes entered the office, with a pistol visible behind the belt of his trousers. Based on this, I realized that this was also a police officer and asked him to show his ID. This man took out a purse from his pocket, quickly opened it and closed it, while not letting me make sure that it was a police officer. Then police officer Karim Mustafa wrote my explanations on paper and seized the banknotes provided by me in denominations of 100 (one hundred) US dollars in the total amount of 1500 (one thousand five hundred) US dollars. He asked me to sign the document he had written, but I refused, explaining that I did not speak Arabic and did not know what was written there.
He asked me to write the explanations in my own hand, which I did. The officer then asked the representative of Join Up to translate my explanation in writing, which he did. Please note that my explanations were written for almost two pages, and the translation into Arabic turned out to be only a few lines. I asked the police officer: what is the name of the document drawn up by him? He was unable to answer my question. Then I asked the police officer to inspect the scene, take a photo, take fingerprints from the safe, read the information from the electronic door, how many times and at what time they entered our room. The police officer refused to do it and said that the court did it. Then he said that we ourselves are to blame for what happened and put forward two versions. The first version: when my wife came into the room in the morning with a child, she secretly changed money from me.

The second version: that we are scammers and, by prior agreement with my wife, we specially brought counterfeit money and want to earn money at the hotel in this way. Other versions of the theft were not even considered. Hearing this, you can’t even imagine how much it cost me the strength to restrain myself and not crack this corrupt policeman. Thank God I restrained myself, otherwise I don’t know what it could turn into. I think that the officer deliberately provoked me, knowing the psychology of the fraternal Slavic people. So keep this in mind, keep yourself in control. They need any illegal pretext from our side. As far as I understand, they have long worked out a scheme of how to behave in such situations, how to make the victims refuse the application. Then the police officer said that tomorrow morning at 9:30 am I needed to be at the hotel reception, that a representative of the company Joyne Up, police officers would come for me and take me to court.
After that we parted ways.
And then a busy night continued in connection with the current situation: what to do in this case and how to protect yourself from illegal actions by the hotel administration and the police. Since this is a different country, with its own laws and regulations. First of all, I reported the incident to the travel company Welkome Tour (Ukraine), where I purchased vacation vouchers. The travel agent on this issue could not tell me anything intelligible, as she said that she had never encountered such a problem, but she would find out from her colleagues and provide all kinds of assistance. She picked up the phone at night, tried to help in every possible way, but alas, she had no experience in this matter, she was always interested in the course of events. I would like to thank her for her moral support. She was essential in the current situation.
Then I called the main representative of the Joint Up company in the city of Hurghada, Mikhail, at +201063355976 and reported the incident and asked for help, to which he replied that the maximum that his employee could provide was as an interpreter to the court. And that he will arrive at the hotel at 9:30. There was little time, I monitored the Internet and found that the incident should be reported to the Embassy of Ukraine. On the Internet, I found the Embassy's emergency hotline number +201000039648. Having called this number, the person on duty picked up the phone, to whom I informed about the situation. The duty officer told me that in the morning at 9 o'clock I went to the hotel reception and waited for a phone call from the Vice Consul of Ukraine in Egypt. At the beginning of the tenth vice-consul called and introduced himself as Andrey Gutovsky. I explained the issue to him. He listened to me carefully and suggested that I use the services of the lawyer Mr.

Zakaria Eissa Ismail and gave the phone number +201001901060, and also said that the lawyer has an assistant, her name is Irina, that she is Russian and it would be convenient to communicate with her (phone number +201224929549). I thanked him and asked if there was a more unforeseen situation I could call him again. Vice Consul Gutovsky Adrey supported me morally and said that if necessary, call at any time of the day. For which he is also very grateful. Because even verbal support was simply necessary in this situation.
At the hotel reception, my wife and I waited until 12:30. It was not a police officer, not a representative of the Joint Up company, who came to the hotel to take me to court, as was said earlier by the police officer. While we were sitting, all the hotel managers saw us, as well as the hotel's general manager, Hany Abdeishafy Elzayat, who walked around us and laughed. We went to lunch. After dinner in the room. There was no mood to go to the sea.
At 17:00, the phone in the room rang and one of the hotel managers said that I had to be at the hotel reception at 18:30, that the police would come and take me to court. At the appointed time, I arrived with my wife, but there were no police at the reception. Seeing everything that was happening, I asked my wife to discreetly record everything on video when meeting with the above-mentioned persons, so that there would be evidence of the illegal activities of the hotel administration, a representative of the Joyne Up company and a police officer. At about 7:15 pm, a representative of Joyne Ap Mohammed Hussain approached us, and immediately after him, the general manager of the Hany Abdeishafy Elzayat hotel, who started calling somewhere and giving my details and then suggested that a car would pick us up and take us to court. We agree to go or not. We refused, because the state bodies: the prosecutor's office and the court are open until 18:00. And it was already past 19:00.
And there was no certainty that we would be taken to court. The hotel's general manager, Hani, replied that it was none of our business until what time the court was open. We suggested that we go tomorrow afternoon at any time and only with a lawyer, but not at night. And they asked why they didn’t come for us today at the appointed time. There was no answer. Then Hani said that there was a limousine waiting for us outside and that we should go to the court to finish the case, if we refuse the car, then the police will come and forcefully take us away anyway. Our refusal to go means that we are guilty and the car is taking us in any case, whether we agree or disagree. And then they offered us that if you don’t want to go to figure out whether we are to blame or not, then we can initially refuse the problem and that’s it. We refused to go, as we read in the reviews of tourists who got into unpleasant situations, what happens in the police stations in the evening.

That the main part of the police officers go home after work, and only those who want to resolve their issues remain at work, having a monetary reward from clients for this, depending on the incident. In this case, measures of psychological and physical influence can be applied. Honey gave us 10 minutes to think. After which Hani and Mohammed left. The situation became very aggravated, and I decided to call the assistant lawyer Irina, explained the whole situation to her and received professional advice from her. I also want to express my gratitude to Irina, because her consultation practically put an end to the psychological pressure on us. After a while, Mohammed came up and asked what we had decided, to which I replied that I was ready to go only with a representative of the consulate, the Amnodaul service (Egyptian secret service) and the lawyer Mr. Zakaria Eissa Ismail, call them and let's go. Please convey my words to General Manager Hani.
Hearing my words, Mohammed was speechless and left. Approximately 10 minutes later he returned and said that we do not need to go anywhere today and that maybe we will have to go tomorrow or after tomorrow. He will report. For the remaining days of rest, no one bothered us anymore. But I still could not calm down, not knowing the fate of the report, which was written by a police officer. And I also learned from the vice consul that a counter-application had been written against us from the hotel administration. Therefore, he asked Mikhail, the main representative of Joint Up in the Arab Republic of Egypt in the city of Hurghada, in the form of an SMS message to the phone number +201063355976, to assist in establishing the registration number of the report in the police department on the fact of stealing money from the Albatros White Beach hotel room.

Mikhail answered my request by SMS, so that I would call him back to the number from the hotel reception, and he would explain the situation in our case.
Having dialed Mikhail's phone number, he explained to me that I should contact the Embassy of Ukraine in Egypt on this issue and that he talked about this with the consul, who gave me the lawyer's phone number. Then he made claims to me: why I did not go to the last meeting at the prosecutor's office. And that these issues are not in his competence and at the moment can not help. I explained to Mikhail that we waited until dinner at the hotel reception for a representative of Joyne Up, whom he promised to provide us with a police officer, but no one came to pick us up. And we didn’t know where to go ourselves, we didn’t know the address where the prosecutor’s office was located. Mikhail then said that in our case, they were denied accompaniment by their representative, because someone told the company that we should be represented by a licensed official translator from the Administration of the Red Sea Coast. On this occasion, I said that no one informed us.

And did you translate it correctly? 2) translated my communication with hotel managers? 3) insisted on a trip to the police, the court, where would you transfer? So, dear compatriots, think about it. Or maybe he was an interested person?
The next day, July 29.2016 at 9:50 pm at the Albatros White Beach Hotel, a meeting was recorded between the hotel's general manager Hani and police officer Karim in the bar on the ground floor, not far from the reception. They had a very fruitful and friendly conversation. I do not rule out that they discussed our situation. Allah is their judge.
On the penultimate day of rest, two cleaners came to our room after dinner and insistently asked to clean the room. Please notice two cleaners. Previously, one cleaner always cleaned. I refused to clean them, for security reasons. And then I read in the reviews that they plant drugs and so on.
There was also a strange moment: on the last dinner in the restaurant, about five waiters persistently approached us and offered to drink wine, although not a single offer was received during the entire rest. Thoughts arise, why? All this can of course be regarded as a coincidence, but nevertheless there were such facts. Even before going to the airport, we had to review every thing in our suitcases so that nothing criminal was thrown at us, as there were threats from the hotel's general manager Hani. God saves man, who save himself.
Now we are in our beloved country Ukraine, everyone is alive and well and we are thinking what to do next: write a letter to the Embassy about providing support to protect our interests in the person of the recommended lawyer Mr. Zakaria Eissa Ismail or leave everything with impunity. The question is still open...

I want to write a few words in general terms about the Albatros White Beach Hotel itself, which opened in March 2016. The layout and territory is beautiful, but not enough greenery. Many pools, children's water slides. Nice sandy beach, you can safely enter the sea without corrals. For kids it's great. The bar near the reception makes delicious cocktails. The rooms are beautiful, exclusive, with a glass wall and a music speaker in the shower, but the cleaning is unsatisfactory. The food in the restaurant is unsatisfactory, the food is all spicy, the grilled dishes are always burnt. The children's menu appeared only at the end of the holiday and then the choice is not great. I saw how mothers with small children repeatedly swore that their children had nothing to eat. Waiters are arrogant and uneducated. The first days when there was small money and tipping them, they were welcoming and friendly.
Then the small money ran out, there was nowhere to change and there was nothing to give, so the waiter who brought the coffee says, where is my money for work. We say: sorry, there are no small ones, so he says, then I will take the coffee and there is no coffee. Go yourself and take it. We were shocked by this answer. After that, no more tips were left. Animation is one thing. Complete inactivity. And this is a five star hotel!
In conclusion, I would like to say that I sympathize with the founders of the hotel, who have invested their soul and huge financial resources in it. With such work and the attitude of managers, chefs, attendants, animation to tourists, the hotel will not recommend itself, but will fall into a deep abyss. And in order to win the name of the hotel and the interest of the tourist, you need to make a lot of efforts. What the staff of this hotel is completely missing. It's a pity, with the infrastructure that exists, the hotel could be of a high level.
And the tourist occupancy would be 90-100%. And now, dear founders, you yourself know how full of tourists your hotel is, it's not for me to tell. The result is deplorable. Think about it - why?
I, for myself, rest in the Arab country Egypt closed forever. Although more beautiful than the Red Sea, it is the seas (its underwater world), and not the ocean, that are hard to find. And most importantly, from this situation, I got a lesson, experience in life and made the right conclusion. I don't want anyone to be in a similar situation. Be careful and attentive!