Picture used for illustrative purpose only.

Mohammed Yaseen, Staff Reporter

A gang of 10 Asians and Eastern Europeans kidnapped an Asian investor and his girlfriend from a villa he owned in Dubai Silicon Oasis, where they locked them up in an apartment before forcing the investor to transfer 700,000 digital currencies worth Dhs2.605 million to the account of one of them in his home country.

The Dubai Criminal Court sentenced six gang members in presence and the rest in absentia to five years in jail to be followed by deportation and fined them Dhs2.605 million.

The case dated back to July last year when an investor filed a complaint in which he stated that he had been kidnapped from his villa in Silicon Oasis Community Park, Dubai Silicon Oasis, locked up and assaulted before his digital wallet was seized and 700,000 digital currencies were transferred to the account of a fellow man.

The victim stated that gang members stormed his home at dawn on the day of the incident and forced him and his girlfriend, who happened to be there, to get into their vehicle.

The gang members, seven of whom belonged to the same nationality as his, and three others from an Eastern European country, assaulted him and his girlfriend and locked them up inside an apartment in the Jumeirah Lakes Towers, he said.

A gang member seized his mobile phone, opened his digital wallet app and transferred 700,000 digital currencies to his account in his home country, he added.

The victim’s girlfriend stated that two gang members transported them in a vehicle they were using from the place where they had been locked up to a nearby artificial lake and then stopped a taxi and fled away, leaving her and the victim there.

The victim got into the vehicle that the gang members left in place and tried to chase the gang members but as the taxi driver refused to stop, the victim hit the taxi from behind and consequently the taxi driver stopped but the two gang members fled away, she added.

A policeman stated in the interrogations that he received a report that an Asian and his girlfriend had been kidnapped in Dubai Silicon Oasis by a gang, adding that he received another report that a taxi had been hit by the victim.

A team of detectives gathered inferences from the place of the incident, thanks to which the defendants were identified and arrested with sums of money in their possession.

On interrogation, the defendants admitted that the money in their possession was given to them by the mastermind, who provided them with knives and electric detonators to kidnap the investor because the latter allegedly owed him a large sum of money and refused to give it back.