Two jailed, fined for promoting drugs through Whatsapp in Dubai

Mohammed Yaseen, Staff Reporter

Dubai: The Dubai Court of Appeal upheld a judgment issued by the Criminal Court, which sentenced two Asians, including one who is still at large, to three years in jail to be followed by deportation, fined them Dhs100,000 each, and ordered confiscation of Dhs891,000, which was available balance in bank account of one of them.

The convicts were found guilty of peddling narcotic drugs in the country via WhatsApp. They had bank accounts in different banks to receive payments against narcotics. The case dates back February last year, when the Anti-Narcotics Department received firsthand information that the defendant was a member of a gang engaged in smuggling and trading in narcotic drugs and selling them via WhatsApp.

In interrogation, a cop stated that he had received a message via Whatsapp from a phone number belong to an Asian country offering narcotics drugs. The sender asked him to deposit the value in a local account number.

Accordingly, the owner of the account number was identified and arrested him, he added. Further investigations and searches showed that the defendant was working as a minor technician, who received more than 800 transfers between January and February last year, and that the available balance in that account was Dhs891,000, most of which was through cash deposits via an ATM, the cop said.

On interrogation, the account holder admitted that he had several accounts in different banks and that the money belonged to another person, who owned the ATM card for those accounts. He, however, denied he had any connection to the drug trafficking gang, pleading that his partner, who is still at large, paid him Dhs8,000 to help him open the account and was getting Dhs1,000 per month in return for his help.