Fraud of CEO of private jet firm against Dubai-based gift company

Three suspects have been  referred  by the Dubai Public Prosecution to the Dubai Misdemeanor Court over charges of fraud, forgery, using forged documents and possessing items resulting from a fraud case.

The three men committed a fraud against a Dubai-based gifts company of AED 25,800 worth of gifts using forged documents.  The first suspect posed as a CEO of a private jet company and lured the gifts company to send a variety of gifts to two guests in the UAE (i.e. the second and third defendants). The first defendant forged a bank transaction document to demonstrate payment of AED 25,800 to the gifts company's bank account so as to convince them to send the gifts to the two other defendants. The first defendant also forged a fake transaction in the system to the bank account of the gifts company.

Fraud and embezzlement by an employee of a law firm

A pblic relations officer (PRO) is  alleged  to have  embezzled  AED 190,000 from a UAE-based law firm by stealing the law firm's cheques and forging signatures on the cheques to withdraw the money. The PRO had also misappropriated four other cheques in the same way to misuse them later. Two weeks prior to the incident, the PRO's contract of employment with the law firm was terminated in a mutual accord, upon which he received his end of service benefits worth AED 22,000 and his residency visa and labour card were cancelled.

The PRO's plan was to flee the UAE on the same day on which the cheques were stolen and forged – his plan was foiled as the theft and forgery of the cheques came to the law firm's attention upon receipt of SMS alerts from their bank. The law firm immediately reported the incident to the police.

The suspect admitted to the crime during the public prosecution investigation. The defendant has been referred to the Court of First Instance for charges of fraud, forgery and use of forged documents. 

CEO of companies and his father sentenced to prison in Dubai for AED 8 million scam

A British CEO of two companies in Dubai and his father, who was working with him, have been  sentenced  to three years in prison each and fined AED 14 million, followed by deportation, for scamming a dozen suppliers out of more than AED 8 million.

The two defendants scammed suppliers into selling them products worth millions using dud cheques by claiming to have signed billions of dirhams of contracts with Dubai Expo. As part of the scam, the defendants had opened offices, a warehouse and hired staff to carry out the scam. The two defendants also arranged for advertisements in local newspapers in August 2019 seeking to purchase various products. Suppliers of a variety of products contacted the defendants based on their advertisements and visited the offices of the defendants' two companies. Deals worth over AED 8 million were signed with the suppliers. When the cheques bounced, the victims reported the incidents to Jebel Ali Police Station in October 2019. The victims later found the premises empty.

A third defendant involved in the crime as cleared by the Dubai Court of Misdemeanour as he had neither issued nor handed the suppliers the cheques.

The subject of the crime included the following:

  • AED 536,000 worth of fencing material;
  • AED 4 million worth of carpets;
  • AED 1.4 million worth of ceramics;
  • AED 819,000 worth of plastic material.

AML developments in Dubai

The sixth webinar in our CC&I Conference series focused on developments in anti-money laundering in the UK/EU, Dubai, Hong Kong and Australia. Please click  here  to watch the recording of the webinar.

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