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A Manhattan food cart vendor plotted to torture a prominent member of the city’s Egyptian-American business community but was pinched after the man he hired to do the gruesome work ratted him out, police sources said Tuesday.
“You realize things you read in a book or see in a movie are also possible, that they can happen to you,” the intended victim, Sharif El Fouly, a 70-year-old fashion designer, told the Daily News. “I’m counting my blessings, how lucky I am.”
The suspect, Wagih Gamaleldein, 48, was busted Monday on the street corner where he operates his cart, E. 59th St. and 5th Ave. Sources said Gamaleldein asked a friend to torture Fouly with boiling water, acid and a knife until he made good on a real estate deal in which Gamaleldein thought he was taken advantage of.
He wanted Fouly to fork over at least $ 100,000, and possibly as much as $ 300,000, or pay with his life.
“He was supposed to torture him until he handed over the money,” a police source said. “If he didn’t then he was supposed to get rid of him.”
About two weeks ago, Fouly said, a man he had never met showed up suddenly at his handbag design company in Astoria and told him what he was hired to do and that he had decided against it because he had learned Fouly was a good person.
Police were then called, and the would-be hitman cooperated with police, Fouly and police sources said.
Gamaleldein was charged by police with attempted kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. He was arraigned in Queens Criminal Court Tuesday.
Fouly, who lives on the Upper East Side, owns Sharif Designs, and also built the Baccalaureate School for Global Education in Astoria.
He said he first met Gamaleldein more than two years ago when the latter showed up at Sharif Designs looking for a job as a driver.
“But he didn’t have his license,” Fouly said. “I also felt he’s not of the right character.”
Still, Fouly expressed an interest when the suspect, who lives in Queens, asked if he’d be interested in buying property on Steinway St. in Astoria from a friend of his, Abdeljalil Nebbari.
“He said he would get something from the friend and I asked if he was a broker,” Fouly said, recalling Gamaleldein’s response: “‘No, no, no — He’s a good friend of mine and that’s the deal we have.’”
The property, it turned out, had been taken over by the bank. Fouly purchased it from the bank and built a four-story apartment building on the site.
Soon after the sale was completed, Fouly said, the suspect paid him a visit and demanded money.
“I said, ‘Listen, don’t come here anymore,’” Fouly said. “Whatever the deal you had with the seller, that’s your problem.”
Fouly thought nothing of it until the man hired to torture and possibly kill him showed up two weeks ago.
Fouly said the two weeks that followed were an extremely tense period for him, his wife and adult son, but that the NYPD protected him until an arrest was made.
rparascandola@nydailynews.com
Yahoo Local News – New York Daily News
http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info/?p=16190
via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info
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