Seven jailed for Dhs4.5m heist of laptops

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

Seven members of an Asian gang behind the robbery of 4,177 laptops worth Dhs4.5m will serve five years behind bars plus deportation, the Criminal Court ruled on Thursday.

An Asian businessman, his associate, two unemployed men and a driver went to the warehouse of a company in the Jebel Ali Free Zone area and used a truck to steal a container full of computers destined for Uzbekistan.

To smuggle it out of the port, they bribed a complicit security guard who was manning the port’s gate. The guard on his part talked to his workmate who worked during the night shift. Both agreed to share the bribe.

Prosecutors accused the guard’s workmate, 39, of accepting a Dhs2, 000 to allow the truck driver, 55, flee with the container full of stolen computers without conducting any necessary checks or asking for its exit permit.

They accused the guard, 30, of brokering the bribery deal between his workmate and the defendants involved in the robbery. Both worked at the Jebel Ali under a security services provider, records showed.

The container was worth Dhs23, 500. They took it to Umm Al Quwain, offloaded the laptops and stashed them inside a warehouse in preparation to sell them. Police apprehended them and recovered 4169 laptops.

They confessed before police and prosecutors and revealed that the driver pocketed a Dhs3, 500 cut for driving the truck out of the port. The Dubai Criminal Court additionally slapped each one with a Dhs5, 000 fine.

On the record, the guard’s workmate said he was on night duty when the guard contacted telling him a truck would be getting out of the port and that he would receive Dhs2, 000 for not checking it or asking for documents.

The guard provided him the truck’s number. He let it pass. The next day the guard gave him the reward. The guard said the gang offered him Dhs4, 000. Since his duty was by daytime, he sought his workmate’s help. The seventh defendant –an unemployed man- said that at the warehouse in Umm Al Quwain, ten men arrived and helped offload the laptops onto eight Pickup trucks. “I was promised a Dhs10, 000 share.”

The complainant -an Uzbek trader, 44- said that police contacted him two days later to notify him that they arrested the gang. “My business partner went to the scene and received 4,159 laptops,” the trader explained.

An Emirati warrant officer said they combed the flat of the businessman, 35, and recovered six laptops. His associate, 27, revealed he too had taken four laptops for marketing the loot. Police seized them in his flat.