10 Asians put behind bars over fraud charges

Mohammed Yaseen, Staff Reporter

The Dubai Court of Appeal upheld a ruling issued by the Court of First Instance sentencing 10 Asians to six months in jail to be followed by deportation and fining them Dhs155,000 on fraud charges. The defendants were convicted of collecting an equivalent amount of the fine by allegedly selling fuel through fake operations carried out via a card that belonged to a company, which one of them worked in.

The case dated back to an agreement reached by the representative of a car maintenance company with nine people working in petrol station to take advantage of his company to steal the value of fuel without using it by means of carrying out fake operations.

According to the official documents, the auditor of a car maintenance company filed a complaint in which he stated that the company’s representative had stolen the value of the fuel allocated to the company.

The complainant stated in the investigations that the company’s representative had been presenting valid invoices but in a suspicious manner, so a complaint was filed with the police, who initiated an investigation into the incident.

After examining the company’s fuel card and checking the sites and the video clips in which it was used, the police found that the company’s representative used to enter the petrol stations where he used to receive envelopes after using the company’s card.

A policeman stated that he interrogated the suspects, who confessed to having agreed with the company’s representative that they would be given 20 per cent and he 80 per cent of the fuel value against receiving a bill of the total amount.

Separately, the Dubai Criminal Court sentenced two Asians, one of them a fugitive, to six months in prison each for stealing cash money, bullion and jewellery valued at Dhs520,000 from the safe of a company for which one of them first worked. The Court also fined the two convicts jointly Dhs520,000. They would be also deported after serving the penalties, the Court ruled.