An Egyptian court has ordered the arrest of two sons of former President Hosni Mubarak over stock market manipulation, according to state media.
Alaa and Gamal Mubarak are accused, alongside several other people, of making unlawful profits by failing to inform the stock market of agreements to acquire majorities in several banks through front companies.
The two brothers, both wealthy businessmen, deny any wrongdoing.
The pair on Saturday attended a hearing at a criminal court in the capital, where Judge Ahmed Abdoul-Fetouh ordered their arrest, according to officials, who spoke to The Associated Press news agency on condition of anonymity.
The accused were then taken to a prison south of Cairo, the officials said. Hearings are set to continue on October 20.
Gamal, the younger of the two, was once considered his father's heir apparent. He is accused of being part of a group that obtained $27m from the bank scheme.
The elder brother, Alaa, was not involved in politics, but is accused of having amassed a fortune through his father's contacts.
Hosni Mubarak ruled Egypt from 1981 until he was overthrown in a 2011 uprising, which went on to become part of the Arab Spring.
According to Sahar Aziz, a professor of law at Rutgers Law School, the arrests came as the two brothers had begun taking tentative steps back into public life over the past 18 months.
"Gamel and Alaa were seen many times in public, in a way that made them seem very connected to the people and down to earth at a time when the economy has been struggling," she told Al Jazeera.
"When Gamal and Alaa come out in public and are spotted and it's all over social media, this signals to the regime that they might be seeking to get back into the limelight and back into political life," she added. "The current regime does not want Alaa or [Gamal] to be in the public limelight or for the people to even be thinking of them as potential political actors."
Since 2011, Mubarak and his sons have spent several spells in detention.
The trio was previously sentenced to three years in prison following corruption convictions in 2015 for diverting more than $11.5m in public money to maintain presidential palaces.
The sons were freed five months later, while Mubarak was released in March 2017after he was cleared of inciting the killing protesters. He remains under investigation for alleged corruption.
Three other men were also arrested on Saturday, including Yasser El Mallawany and Hassan Heikal, current and former board members at the Egyptian investment bank EFG-Hermes, a judicial source told Reuters news agency.
All those accused in the case, which began in 2012, had previously been released on bail and barred from travel.
