Employee runs away with chequebook

Ehab Atta, Mahmoud Muhsen, Staff Reporters

A Gulf citizen was seeking to employ a Gulf national as a representative for finalising government transactions. He published an ad in the newspapers and a Gulf national in his thirties applied for the job. The employee was accepted but he breached the trust placed in him and stole the employer’s chequebook with which he withdrew Dhs360,000 from the employer’s account and implicated the employer in a dud cheque case.

According to the official records, the case dated back to 2007 when the victim published an ad in a newspaper about a representative job and the defendant applied and was accepted for the job.

Some 7 months later, the defendant said he wanted to quit work for private reasons. The victim, however, discovered after a while that his own chequebook, which he used to keep in his office, was missing. He complained to the police and obtained a certificate to this effect, which he submitted to the bank to stop encashment of any submitted cheque. He, however, discovered that Dhs360,000 was withdrawn from his account and that a complaint was filed against him by a citizen accusing him of issuing a dud cheque for Dhs70,000 as down payment for a car. In another case, the Sharjah Criminal Court heard a case in which three expatriates were charged with taking Dhs200,000 in exchange for the removal of an administrative ban from an Arab through the electronic work system, taking advantage of the job of one of them.

According to official records, the defendants received Dhs200,000 from the victim for the administrative ban issued against him to be removed. As the defendant who was supposed to do the job did not respond, the victim filed a lawsuit against him.

The defendant testified that he received a phone call from the victim in which he requested him to come to his office in the industrial area where the victim gave an envelope containing money to him. When the defendant refused to take the money, the victim told him that the money was only a gift in recognition of the services rendered by the defendant.

The defendant told the court that the surveillance cameras installed in the victim’s office would prove that he did not agree to remove the victim’s administrative ban, particularly because his resume was void of any violations.