Court jails, fines 10 for theft and embezzlement

Mohammed Yaseen, Staff Reporter

The Dubai Criminal Court sentenced 10 people to three months in prison each and fined them Dhs150,000 to be paid jointly on the charge of theft and embezzlement.

The convicts will be also deported after serving the terms, the court ordered.

The main convict, who was working for a vehicle maintenance company, connived with nine workers of a petrol station to make refilling transactions for other cars using the company’s fuel card for his own interest.

The involved workers were giving him value of the refilled fuel against a share of it.

The trick was disclosed when the company’s auditor suspected that the company’s PRO had been fooling the company through manipulation in the fuel bills, which were issued from a petrol station, thinking that no one would detect his play. The auditor filed a report with the police, stating that the company’s PRO had been stealing the fuel value allocated to the vehicles belonging to the company.  A team of investigators checked statements of the company’s fuel card that was used by the accused to know the petrol stations where it had been used.

Upon reviewing footage of the surveillance cameras installed in the suspected petrol station, the company’s PRO was seen while entering the place and receiving envelopes after using the company’s fuel card. Accordingly, all the suspects had been arrested and interrogated.

The workers admitted that they and the PRO had a deal to take 20 per cent of the fuel’s value, while he would receive 80 per cent in cash and bills for the full amount. They were all referred to the Public Prosecution and from there to the Criminal Court, where they were sentenced to three months in prison each and to pay collectively Dhs150,000.

Recently, the Dubai Criminal Court sentenced an Asian cleaner to three months in jail to be followed by deportation and fined him Dhs30,000 on charging of stealing Dhs30,000 from a company he was working and hiding the same in a yard near his house.

The defendant was arrested after the company’s surveillance cameras caught him in the act.