Essam Marzouk

Life Born to a wealthy engineer in Cairo, Marzouk grew up in a 5th-storey apartment at 2 Doctor El-Mahroky Street in the suburban Mohandeseen district of Cairo.

In Canada In 1993, Marzouk acquired two fake Saudi passports and flew to Khartoum, Sudan, on May 23. Once there, he acquired tickets to fly from Damascus, Syria, to Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, connecting with Lufthansa Flight 492 in Frankfurt, Germany. Ali Mohamed had travelled from California to meet Marzouk at the airport. Airport security noticed him waiting for "Al-Harbi" and questioned him, before releasing him. While in prison, on charges of using a forged document, fraud and illegally entering the country, Marzouk applied for refugee status, claiming he feared religious and political persecution in Egypt.

Six months after Marzouk's arrest, Mohamed returned from his trip to Sudan where he met with Osama bin Laden, and brought Abul-Dahab with him. Dahab later told Egyptian interrogators he had withdrawn $3,000 from a Californian bank account on orders of bin Laden himself, to offer as bail money to Marzouk's lawyer. Mohamed was viewed suspiciously and subsequently detained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) himself. However, after a brief phone call with U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent John Zent, Mohamed was identified as a CIA agent. Marzouk spent nearly a year in detention in Canada before his refugee status was confirmed and he was released. and instead granted him refugee status on December 12, 1994.

That year, Marzouk co-founded an import-export business named 4-U Enterprises with his "best friend" in Canada, former Egyptian Amr Hamed who shared his love of sports.

When the Azeri police received confirmation that Saqr was in his hotel room drinking coffee with others, they stormed the room grabbing all three people they found present and brought them still barefoot to the police station. The Iranian official hadn't yet shown up, and they had instead arrested Saqr, as well as Ahmad Salama Mabruk and Marzouk, who was wearing a "shabby business suit". They were brought to the police station, where the Mossad agent says the police "beat the crap out of them". Marzouk was released from prison during Mohamed Morsi's presidency and was later arrested in Malaysia after a failed terrorist plot then got deported back to Egypt.

In November 2001, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigated claims that an "al-Qaeda office" in Kabul had business cards reading 4-U Enterprises and included an address for a rented postal box in a B.C. convenience store.