Company PRO jailed for embezzling Dhs720, 000

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

A public relations officer forged receipts to embezzle his employer’s Dhs720, 119. He will spend one year in the dock after which he will be deported.

The Arab defendant, 28, was working at a Dubai contracting company, tasked with settling payments on behalf of his employer to government departments including a roads and transport authority, prosecutors explained.

During 2017 and 2018, he forged as many as 370 payment receipts attributed to the authority. On them he noted that the authority had received the payments. He submitted them to his employer and pocketed the cash.

Prosecutors charged him with embezzlement, forgery, use of forged documents and abusing fiduciary duties. During a court hearing in March the defendant denied. However, the Dubai Criminal Court has found him guilty. A Sudanese legal representative of the company lodged a complaint after the incident came to light in August last year. “He was handed Dhs792, 314 to take it to the authority. He took there only Dhs72, 195 and pocketed the rest.

“We learnt from the authority that it received only Dhs72, 195,” said the representative, adding that the defendant took cash, forged receipts attributed to the authority and submitted them to make it appear as he executed payments.

The embezzlement campaign came to light after the defendant behaved suspiciously then took his annual leave. “I revised all his work and documents submitted by him,” said the Pakistani head of the company’s accounts section.

“I discovered he faked receipts showing the types of transactions and payments required by the authority. Sometimes, he executed payments but then forged receipts of the same transactions and exaggerated the required fees.”

An Egyptian accountant from an audit office confirmed the embezzlement and forgery. Technical evidence included letter from the authority denying having received any payments regarding eight bogus receipts.

The authority cited ninth receipt whose actual fees in its e-system were Dhs120 only but the sum on its printed form was counterfeited to show that the fees the authority collected were allegedly Dhs1, 120.