Egyptian police have arrested 16 Muslim Brotherhood members who are believed to have smuggled currency in and out of the country and plotting militant attacks in Egypt. The 16 are said to have been funding the Muslim Brotherhood to carry out militant attacks in Egypt.
The Interior Ministry announced that the suspects were collaborating with wanted Brotherhood members in Turkey to help smuggle wanted Islamists from Egypt to Europe. The members of the organization have been fleeing persecution in Egypt as the government deems them enemies of the state.
The Muslim Brotherhood won a series of elections in the 2011 uprising that overthrew President Hosni Mubarak which led to the election Mohamed Morsi as the first freely-elected president of Egypt.
The military, led by the then defense minister Abdel Fattah el-Sissi, overthrew Morsi in 2013 amid massive protests against his brief one-year rule. Authorities have since branded the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization and arrested thousands of its members. Morsi collapsed in a courtroom and died in June.
