Man jailed and fined for promoting drugs through WhatsApp in Dubai
- 16 Nov 2023
Mohammed Yaseen, Staff Reporter
The Dubai Criminal Court sentenced an Asian worker to three years in jail to be followed by deportation and fined him Dhs100,000 for promoting drugs via WhatsApp, as a result of which he managed to get Dhs430,000 through 814 deposits into a bank account from people he had no connection with.
The defendant alleged that another person was managing the account from outside the country in exchange for a percentage of the funds received.
The case dated back to last February when the General Department of Anti-Narcotics received a tip-off that a WhatsApp account holder was selling and promoting narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances to customers inside the UAE, using a phone number from outside the country.
A policeman stated in the interrogation that a search and investigation team from the General Department of Anti-Narcotics managed to detect the bank account holder, to whose account offers for promoting and selling drugs were attached.
The bank account holder was found to be a worker who opened the account in 2021 to receive his monthly salary but since then he had not received any salary, he said.
The competent teams checked the defendant’s account to find that it contained Dhs430,000, which were received through more than 800 bank deposits by 604 people of different nationalities inside the country over four months from November 2022 to February 2023.
After checking the data and criminal records of a sample of the depositors in the defendant’s bank account, they were found that they had a criminal history of drug abuse. A search warrant was issued against the bank account holder and he was subsequently arrested.
On interrogation, the defendant admitted that he had opened the bank account using a salary certificate issued by a company he used to work for at the request of a man from outside the country in return for a percentage of the money deposited in the account.
The defendant, however, denied any connection to drug promotion and sale.