On June 7, 2026, the Public Prosecution ordered a freeze on the funds and property of Sabry Nakhnoukh, owner of Falcon Group, which oversees security at several government bodies and facilities, alongside five other defendants, barring them from disposing of those assets.
The order came as part of financial investigations tracing the proceeds of criminal activities uncovered by searches of Nakhnoukh’s home and premises and the defendants’ phones.
The prosecution noted in a statement that law enforcement investigations revealed the defendants laundered illicit proceeds through multiple schemes designed to obscure the nature of the funds and sever links to an illegal origin.
Nakhnoukh and the other defendants were arrested on June 2, 2026, after a brawl at a car dealership. While the Ministry of Interior issued no statements about the incident, the state-linked newspaper Youm7 reported that the Public Prosecution had ordered the defendants held for four days pending investigation, on charges of armed robbery, thuggery, assault, and damaging private property.
However, the Public Prosecution broke the official silence surrounding the case and issued a statement on June 6, saying that police investigations had established that Nakhnoukh and others led “a criminal gang to impose control, practice thuggery through force, threats, and the disruption of public order, using the security company as a front for their activity and using money and weapons to facilitate it.”
The prosecution added that, based on these investigations, it ordered the defendants’ arrest and authorized searches of Nakhnoukh’s home and affiliated premises. The searches led to the seizure of the surveillance camera recording unit reported stolen from the car showroom, along with two automatic rifles, a machine gun, a pistol, several blank-firing and air guns, nearly 1,000 rounds of ammunition, five unlicensed communication devices, and 10 antiquities.
The prosecution also said that forensic examination of the defendants’ phones revealed recordings indicating that they had committed “incidents of kidnapping coupled with sexual assault, detention accompanied by physical torture, coercion to sign documents, the possession of unlicensed weapons, ammunition and torture-facilitating tools, as well as ferocious wild animals.”
The Public Prosecution confirmed that it was pressing ahead with its investigation into these incidents, in addition to the parallel financial investigations to trace the proceeds of their criminal activity.
The term “parallel financial investigations,” used by the prosecution, indicates that the cases in which Nakhnoukh is accused include an additional financial dimension linked to money laundering, in line with the executive regulations of the Anti-Money Laundering Law. The aim is to determine the scope of the criminal networks, or the scope of the crime, to identify and trace its proceeds, as well as the funds and any assets subject to confiscation, to build evidence that can be used in criminal proceedings.
The Public Prosecution said that the asset-freeze order issued against Nakhnoukh and the other defendants covers all the assets they own, including movable assets, shares, sukuk, bonds, safety-deposit boxes and bank deposits, in addition to electronic wallets and real estate.
The Public Prosecution also ordered Nakhnoukh and the other defendants in the case placed on travel ban lists, and notified the relevant authorities, including banks, the Real Estate Registration and Notarization Authority and the Egyptian Exchange, to implement the freeze and bar any disposal of those assets immediately.
In its initial statement, the Public Prosecution stated that the state is resolutely enforcing the rule of law, emphasizing that no individual is immune to accountability regardless of prominence. The office added that it will remain an impartial protector of public rights, ensuring the equal administration of justice to safeguard citizens’ rights without discrimination.
Nakhnoukh’s name was previously linked to a high-profile weapons-possession and thuggery case in 2012, which ended with a life sentence against him in 2014, based on amendments introduced to the Penal Code during the January Revolution that required courts to impose the maximum penalty for weapons possession crimes.
But in 2015, the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled those amendments unconstitutional, describing them as a restriction on judges’ authority to pass sentence. This led to the annulment of Nakhnoukh’s conviction in 2016, rendering them null and void
While his case went to retrial before a new criminal circuit, President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi issued a pardon for him in May 2018, ending all judicial proceedings and security restrictions against him and paving the way for his return to public life, which culminated in his acquisition of Falcon Group, before his name resurfaced in the current investigations.
