Official incarcerated for Dhs720,000 fraud

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

A public relations officer who forged receipts to embezzle his employer’s Dhs720, 119 has lost an appeal against his one year jail term and deportation punishment.

The Arab defendant, 28, worked at a 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 370 payment receipts attributed to the authority. On them he stated that the authority had received the payments. He submitted them to his employer, received and pocketed cash.

At the Criminal Court he denied charges of embezzlement, forgery, use of forged documents and abusing fiduciary duties. Prosecutors presented two files containing 335 receipts attributed to the transport authority.

The court found him guilty of all the charges and sentenced him to one year in jail to be followed by deportation. He insisted the case was cooked up. However, the Dubai Appeals Court dismissed his plea.

The company’s Sudanese legal representative who lodged a complaint testified that the defendant was handed Dhs792, 314 to take it to the authority. He delivered only Dhs72, 195 and pocketed the rest.

“The authority notified us it received Dhs72, 195. He embezzled money, forged receipts attributed to the authority and submitted them to make it appear as if he executed payments,” said the representative. The embezzlement came to light after the defendant behaved suspiciously then took his annual leave. “I revised all his work and documents he submitted,” said the Pakistani head of the company’s accounts section.

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

In a letter, the transport authority denied having received any payments regarding eight bogus receipts. Regarding a ninth receipt, actual fees in the authority‘s e-system were Dhs120 but the receipt was exaggerated to show the authority collected Dhs1, 120.