The photo has been used for illustrative purposes.

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

An investor and two accomplices stole a car and forged paperwork to smuggle it abroad. They will spend one year in jail and pay a Dhs150, 000 fine.

The Arab investor, 40, a countryman, 32, and an Asian employee, 60, stole the car of an Egyptian inspector, 37, from Nad Al Sheba area at the beginning of April 2018. He complained to Al Barsha Police Station. They forged a customs declaration form by changing letter ‘G’ to ‘C’ in its chassis number. They attributed its ownership to a showroom in Al Aweer where the employee worked. They also forged a transit document.

They signed and stamped the bogus documents then presented them to an unsuspecting customs official and obtained a customs card and an exportation certificate. In court, the investor and employee denied. The Dubai Criminal Court has convicted the trio and sentenced them to one year in jail and slapped them with a Dhs150, 000 joint fine to be followed by deportation. It ordered the forged e-documents be erased.

In prosecution records, the inspector after being sacked parked his car outside his residence. It became dirty. A transport authority kept fining it. He parked it at a complex near Nad Al Sheba Army Camp in Nov.2017. In 2018, the investor and countryman called an unsuspecting Syrian recovery driver. They showed him its customs card and claimed it had no keys since they bought it on auction. He helped take it to a keys shop in Sharjah. An hour later, they contacted him to transport it to a car wash in Al Aweer. They handed him its customs card and keys. Later, an unsuspecting Pakistani recovery driver transported it to a shipping company in Ras Al Khor.

The company’s Indian official said a clearance company placed the car in a container. The clearance company’s Jordanian manager said it was seized at Jebel Ali Port before it could be loaded on a ship heading to Jordan.

An Emirati lieutenant said investigations revealed documents of 40 cars were forged in the employee’s office at the showroom. “He initially denied. We told him his eligibilities were used in the customs website. He confessed and explained that the investor joined him as a business partner but then started bringing stolen cars. The investor and his countryman would steal cars and forge their e-documents in the office.”

An Omani sergeant testified, “The investor upon arrest explained that a car sales broker would steal cars and sell them to him, to smuggle them to Libya. He purchased the one in question from him at Dhs100, 000.”