Man swindles Dhs79,000 from card via SMS

Aya Al Deeb, Staff Reporter

The Abu Dhabi Court of Appeal postponed the judgment in the case of an Asian defendant charged with stealing Dhs79,000 from the credit card of the plaintiff via a fraudulent manner.

In the details of the case, the defendant reportedly sent an SMS to the mobile phone of the victim informing him that his credit card had been canceled and that he must send his card number and the PIN on the grounds of enabling them to update his data to restore his card after it was canceled.

The victim responded to the SMS and sent his card number and the PIN to the defendant (appellant), fearing his credit card from being canceled. This had enabled the defendant to seize the amount in the account of the victim, which amounted to Dhs79,000 from the victim’s credit card, who discovered the robbery via an SMS sent from the bank.  

During the trial session, when the judge asked the defendant, he denied the charge against him completely saying, “I do not know anything about these charges, so I have appealed the verdict of the Court of First Instance.”

He called on the Court to use the utmost compassion and mercy during the sentence and to commute the sentence imposed by a Court of First Instance, which sentenced him to six months in jail to be followed by deportation.

Thus, the Court decided to postpone the verdict to the next Wednesday (July 24).

In the beginning of this month in a separate case the Dubai Criminal Court dealt with  case where a clerk claimed he had foreign currencies worth Dhs45m tainted with a substance that required a cleaning chemical. He tried conning a Dubai Police officer out of Dhs12m.

The Arab defendant, 40, landed at the Dubai Criminal Court on Wednesday for having forged dollar and Euro bills as samples to prove he had the currencies, according to records at Al Muraqqabat Police Station.

Besides forgery, prosecutors accused him of trying to swindle Dhs12 million belonging to Dubai Police after meeting the officer and telling him he had the huge quantity of dollar and Euro bills for sale at Dhs12 million.

He claimed the dollars and Euros worth Dhs45 million simply required a cleaning chemical and it was up to the buyer to also cover expenses of purchasing the chemical. The officer lured him into an ambush on April 22.