Five locked up for Dhs146,000 job scam

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

Five fraudsters hoodwinked a jobseeker into paying Dhs146, 000 for a ghost high paying job. They will spend three years in jail, the Dubai Criminal Court ordered.

The African defendant and his accomplices (aged 31 to 38) targeted an Egyptian victim and offered to employ him as a leading petroleum company’s security department manager, prosecutors revealed on Feb.24. The victim complained that he was in his homeland when he received an email showing it came from the UAE-based petroleum company and that there was an opportunity for him to work as the company’s security manager.

He was asked to fill a form with his personal details and provide a copy of his passport. On another date he sent his CV as requested. Later on, he received an email from the company’s alleged HR manager that he had received the CV.

Thereafter, the victim received the bogus documents. He received a visa application form and an expatriate clearance certificate attributed to the Ministry of Interior. He received a health insurance form attributed to the Ministry of Health and Community Protection.

He also received a bank account application form and a cash transfer confirmation letter attributed to a UAE-based bank. The gang also sent him the supposed employment contract attributed to the petroleum and industrial supplies company.

They convinced him the documents pertained to the job offer and asked him to pay $40, 000 to get everything done so he could come and start working. He wired money from his locality in Alexandria after the gang convinced him they were fees for processing documents.

“I later discovered I had fallen victim to a scam,” the victim explained in his complaint at the Naif Police Station. All the documents turned out to be counterfeits, as per reports from the mentioned concerned bodies. Prosecutors charged the five men with forgery, using forged documents and conning the victim, as per the CID’s organised crime section’s investigations. The Dubai Criminal Court jailed them for three years plus deportation.

In the same case, an unemployed Nigerian man, 44, was put in the frame following allegations that he was part of the gang and that he took part in withdrawing sums of money being wired by the victim. He denied the charges in court.

“I forged nothing. A friend asked me to help collect a cash transfer using my ID. I collected $1, 500. I have nothing to do with the defendants in this case.” He had said the same before police and prosecutors. The court pronounced him innocent.