Gang creates fake restaurant account, steals Dhs4,700 using customer's card data
- 08 Mar 2023
Picture used for illustrative purpose only.
Mohammed Yaseen, Staff Reporter
An Asian, conniving with other suspects, built a fake website in the name of a famous fast food chain of restaurants. They then reportedly stole the data of a credit card of an Asian who ordered a meal, and then stole Dhs4,700 from the card.
The Dubai Misdemeanour Court sentenced the first suspect to two months behind bars, to be followed by deportation after serving the jail term, fined him the same amount, confiscated all phones used in the crime, closed the fake website, and deprived the suspect from using the Internet for 6 months.
The details of the case date back to January 2022, when an Asian submitted a report complaining that he had been defrauded by a famous fast food site, adding that he had seen an ad on social media about chicken meals at a famous fast food restaurant, so he filled in his card data to complete the purchase of a meal of Dhs45.
He added in the interrogations that as soon as the request was completed, he received several messages stating that Dhs4,700 were withdrawn in installments from his account, so he contacted the bank and stopped the card, but he received messages of attempts to withdraw other amounts, so he informed the police.
According to a policeman's statement in the interrogations, a team of investigations and electronic investigators tracked the fraud and found the person who used the stolen bank card data to purchase items through the electronic app, so he was arrested at his residence.
On being interrogated, he admitted that he was a member of a gang working in multiple countries, explaining that there were gangsters specialised in creating fake pages for famous shops and restaurants, while another group promoted those pages to attract shoppers, and others stole bank data and distributed them to gang members to make purchases of goods in different countries of the world, and they put those goods up for sale.
The suspect also confessed that he obtained the card data from the gang through the “Telegram” app, which he used to buy energy drinks for Dhs4,700, through a well-known shopping app, taking advantage of the loophole of not asking for the Emirati ID to receive the items, then he sold them to a store and got their value.