Picture used for illustrative purpose only.

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

The Abu Dhabi Criminal Court sentenced eight defendants including four Emiratis, three Syrians and an Ethiopian woman to 7-10 years in jail and fined them Dhs10 million each on fraud charges.

The court ruled that four of the defendants be deported after serving their jail terms and two be acquitted.

The defendants used to fraudulently buy private vehicles and pay the price by cheques that turned to have no balance.

They were also charged with money laundering for transferring and concealing the truth of the proceeds from the original crime, re-selling the vehicles and depositing part of the money in the bank accounts of some of them with the intent of concealing the truth behind the illegal source of the money.

The court ruled that the funds obtained from money laundering be confiscated, whether the liquid funds in the defendants’ accounts with any bank inside and outside the country or any financial or intangible assets owned by each of them.

The case dated back to reports on vehicles allegedly being bought in exchange for cheques that had no balance.

Intensive investigations led to a gang engaged in defrauding those wishing to sell cars displayed on a website with some of them communicating with the victims, while others having the vehicles registered in their names and some others issuing the necessary cheques, which were all proven to be without credit.