The photo has been used for illustrativd purposes.

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

A woman attributed a ghost company to a prince and conned an American investor out of Dhs134,000 ‘transactions clearance fees.’ She will spend three years behind bars.

The Asian woman – a general manager, 44 – forged for herself a business card and attributed it to the ghost company. It bore her identification details as the manager and mentioned the company’s alleged address.  She forged a Professional Licence alleging that she had opened up a coffee shop in Internet City for the American investor, 41. She presented the card and licence to him, prosecutors explained to the Dubai Criminal Court.

She handed him a counterfeit receipt attributed to the company and fixed a duplicate stamp in this regard. She duped him into paying processing fees for the establishment of the coffee shop, as per his complaint.

A report from an economic development department dated Jan.23 confirmed the alleged company never existed. Prosecutors demanded the toughest punishment. She will be deported after serving the jail term.

On the record, he got to know her through her dealings with his friends. She gave him the bogus business card. He later discovered she was a contracting company employee. He asked to have a look at a copy of her visa.

She claimed that both the contracting company and the transactions clearance company belonged to the royal. She kept pretending to receive calls and claiming it was the royal talking to her over the phone. She usually told him the royal tasked her to do this or that. She gained his confidence that she was a manager and a representative for the royal’s clearance company. He asked her to help him open the shop in Internet City.  

He started handing her fees for the Dubai Municipality, the Economic Development Department and concerned bodies. She Whatsapped him a trade licence copy then asked him for money to rent for him an office in the Free Zone area.

She duped him into paying her money to rent a room for the shop, a workers’ accommodation and processing workers’ visas. He went to open a bank account. The bank sent him to the economic department to process a necessary letter.

The department told him his trade licence was fake. A legal consultant confronted her. She apologised, cried and promised to refund. She requested the matter be not reported to the police. However, she started procrastinating. The legal consultant who raised the matter to Al Barsha Police Station gave a similar narration.