Photo used for illustrative purpose.

The Dubai Court of Appeal upheld a verdict issued by the Court of First Instance sentencing a gang of six people to five years in jail to be followed by deportation and fining them Dhs2.6 million for kidnapping two employees working for a gold trading company and stealing the same amount of the fine from them.

The victims were on their way back to the company after receiving the money from another firm in the same area. The court also upheld a verdict sentencing another man to one month and fining him Dhs50,000 for keeping part of the stolen money with him.

The case dated back to May last year when two Asians filed a complaint in which they stated that they had been kidnapped, assaulted and robbed of money belonging to a company they were working for in Naif area in Dubai.

The victims said they had been kidnapped by a group of people who impersonated policemen and subsequently robbed of the money they received that belonged to a company they were working for.

One of the victims said the owner of the company he was working for assigned him and his workmate to receive sums of money from a firm in the same area, adding that they went to the firm on foot to receive the money, which he put in a backpack, and returned on foot to the company.

The second victim stated that he was surprised by a group of people in traditional Emirati dress ‘Kandura’ identifying themselves as policemen and telling him and his workmate that they were under arrest.

The first victim asked them to show their identity cards but they refused and forced them to get into their vehicle to Al Qusais area, where they stole their backpack and mobile phones and left them handcuffed. As soon as they were able to untie their hands, the victims reported the incident to the police.

According to the official documents, a team of detectives managed to identify the suspects after gathering inferences from the crime scene.

The detectives arrested the driver of the vehicle with money and jewels in his possession and he led them to the rest members of the gang.

On interrogation, the suspects confessed to having planned to rob a gold trading company in Naif area, where they set a trap at the entrance to a building and waited for the return of the victims who were working for the same company.

The seventh suspect denied his participation with the rest of the gang members in their crime but admitted that the Dhs50,000 seized in his possession belonged to one of the suspects and that he was in the dark about where the money came from.