Amstone International Limited

Dissolved British company (2015–2024), formerly Aston McKinsey Limited; its Egyptian director was among those detained after a cash-laden jet was seized in Zambia in 2023

Amstone International Limited
Type	Private limited company (Companies House number 09395471)
Founded	19 January 2015 (as Aston McKinsey Limited)
Defunct	20 August 2024
Headquarters	Suite 1, 3rd Floor, 11-12 St James's Square, London SW1Y 4LB (registered office, 2017–2024)
Industry	Management consultancy (SIC 70229)

Amstone International Limited was a private limited company registered in England and Wales (company number 09395471). It was incorporated on 19 January 2015 as Aston McKinsey Limited, renamed on 2 May 2023 and dissolved by compulsory strike-off on 20 August 2024. Throughout its existence its director was Micheal Adel Micheal Botros, whom the register lists as an Egyptian national. In August 2023 Al Jazeera, citing the Egyptian fact-checking platform Matsada2sh, named Botros, "the director of Amstone International Limited", as a passenger on a private jet seized in Zambia with more than $5.5 million in cash, pistols and ammunition. The Amstone name is also used by Amstone International Group, an Egyptian defence-equipment company.

Companies House record

The company was incorporated on 19 January 2015 as Aston McKinsey Limited, with share capital of £1. Its registered nature of business was "management consultancy activities other than financial management" (SIC 70229). The name was changed to Amstone International Limited on 2 May 2023, following a resolution of 25 April 2023. Its last accounts, for micro-entities, were made up to 31 January 2022, and its last confirmation statement was dated 19 January 2023. A first notice of compulsory strike-off was published in The Gazette on 14 May 2024, and the company was dissolved on 20 August 2024.

Its registered office was 20-22 Bedford Row, London WC1R 4JS, until 3 August 2017, when it moved to Suite 1, 3rd Floor, 11-12 St James's Square, London SW1Y 4LB. On 4 August 2024 Companies House changed the registered office to its default address, PO Box 4385, Cardiff CF14 8LH, and on 13 August 2024 it did the same for the officer and controlling-person addresses.

Officers of Amstone International Limited (formerly Aston McKinsey Limited)

Name	Role	Appointed	Resigned	Details in the register
Micheal Adel Micheal Botros	Director	19 January 2015	– (company dissolved 20 August 2024)	Born January 1981; Egyptian; country of residence Qatar
Imran Ali Khan	Director and company secretary	19 January 2015	1 January 2016	Born December 1974; British; correspondence address 20-22 Bedford Row, London WC1R 4JS

The register records Botros as the person with significant control, notified on 6 April 2016, with "significant influence or control". The officer entry gives his country of residence as Qatar, while the entry for the person with significant control gives England.

Zambia aircraft seizure (2023)

On 14 August 2023 Zambia's Drug Enforcement Commission entered a chartered jet that had landed at Kenneth Kaunda International Airport in Lusaka the previous evening. Al Jazeera reported that it had flown from Amman, Jordan, with an overnight stop in Cairo. According to Al Jazeera, the commission seized more than $5.5 million, five pistols, seven magazines and more than 100 rounds of ammunition. More than 600 pieces at first thought to be gold were found to be mainly copper and zinc alloy. Thirteen people were arrested, including six Egyptians.

Al Jazeera reported that Matsada2sh "named Michael Adel Botros as a passenger, who, according to the British government's register, is a 42-year-old Egyptian national residing in Qatar. He is the director of Amstone International Limited, which according to their website, offers a wide range of advanced defence technology and boasts offices in the United States, Egypt, Poland, Greece, the UAE, the United Kingdom and France." It also reported that the journalist Karim Asaad of Matsada2sh had been arrested in Cairo after the platform published its findings, and later released.

Matsada2sh itself reported on 18 August 2023 that "مايكل عادل مايكل بطرس" (Michael Adel Michael Botros) appeared in the UK companies register as the owner of AMSTONE INTERNATIONAL LIMITED. It described the company as providing military consultancy to armies to develop their defence capabilities, with offices in the United States, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, France, Greece, England and Poland. It said that a company representative at the EDEX defence exhibition in Cairo in 2021 had described it as "an Egyptian company with Egyptian capital" with partnerships with five international firms in making anti-tank missiles and attack drones. It also said that the company had announced a partnership with a Greek company to make the Sarisa SRS-1A drone in Egypt, and had won the main sponsorship of EDEX 2023. The Egyptian business site Business 24 reported in September 2024 that Zambia's National Prosecution Authority had issued a document stating that Botros and the other Egyptians had been victims of an armed robbery and fraud carried out by the Zambian Shadrick Kasanda and others, and undertaking not to prosecute Botros or prevent him from travelling. The site said that it was publishing the document exclusively.

Haaretz and TheMarker report (2024)

In March 2024 Haaretz published an English version of a TheMarker investigation into an anonymous complaint alleging that Eric Banoun and Maria Pulera had sold spyware without export permits to a private company said to be acting for the Egyptian government. The paper said that some details in the documents were corroborated by other records, including shipments by Sky Drift from Málaga to Cairo in November 2023, on Qatar Airways waybills, to "Amstone International Trading", whose director it named as Michael Adel Botros. It said that the claim that the client was the Egyptian government "is not backed up by anything". Banoun told the paper that the allegations were "unfounded and baseless" and that most of the material was "fake" and had been "acquired fraudulently". No comment was received from Botros. The report did not give a company number for "Amstone International Trading" or say in which country it was registered. A search of the UK register on 10 November 2026 found no company named Amstone International Trading. Botros's only UK appointment is as director of Amstone International Limited, which took the Amstone name in May 2023.

Amstone International Group Ltd (UK, 2021–2024)

A separate company, Amstone International Group Ltd (company number 13702058), was incorporated in the UK on 25 October 2021 with share capital of £1. Its registered office was 23 Islip Manor Road, Northolt, Middlesex UB5 5DY. Its only officer, as director and company secretary, and its controlling shareholder (75 per cent or more) was Imran Ali Khan, British, born December 1974, with the same correspondence address. The name, nationality and month and year of birth match those of Amstone International Limited's first company secretary. The company filed dormant accounts for the year to 31 October 2022 and was dissolved by compulsory strike-off on 2 April 2024. Its nature of business was registered as "other business support service activities not elsewhere classified" (SIC 82990).

Amstone International Group (Egypt)

An Egyptian defence company trading as Amstone International Group exhibits at Egyptian arms fairs. EDR Magazine wrote in December 2025 that Amstone had been "created around 10 years ago" and had become "a major player in the Egyptian defence arena". It reported that the company had set up a subsidiary in South Africa, had "some 20 African countries as trading partners", worked with French, Italian and Turkish defence companies, and had designed the Jabbar 150 loitering munition, with a declared range of 1,500 km. On its own website the group lists ministries of defence among its clients, including those of Libya, Zambia, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Azerbaijan, as well as the UK Ministry of Defence. It lists offices in Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Hungary, South Africa and Central Africa. None of the sources cited here gives a company registration linking the Egyptian group to either of the dissolved UK companies. Al Jazeera and Matsada2sh both described the UK company by reference to the Amstone website and its overseas offices.

See also

• Eric Banoun
• Maria Pulera
• Michael Adel Botros