10 people lure woman in Dubai into a fake investment scheme, embezzle Dhs761,000

Dubai Civil Court obligated 10 individuals to pay Dhs761,448 to an Arab woman after it was proven they had embezzled her money through an electronic fraud scheme.

The fraudsters were subsequently criminally investigated and final judgments were issued convicting them with a fine equal to the embezzled amount in line with the correlation between criminal liability and civil consequences in cases of embezzlement.

The case dated back to September last year when an Arab woman reported to the police that she had fallen victim of electronic fraud by a group of individuals who had unlawfully seized her money.

The victim stated that one of the defendants contacted her via WhatsApp, offering her to invest in a trading platform.

He also attached a link to a YouTube channel that explained how the platform worked and another link for subscribing and transferring funds.

She transferred Dhs761,000 over several days to the defendants’ accounts for investment and online trading purposes, she said, adding that after a while, they asked her to transfer additional funds for investment purposes.

When she later discovered she had fallen victim of a fraudulent scheme, she demanded her money back, but they refused to do so and closed all communication channels with her. She subsequently reported what happened to the police.

A policeman stated in the interrogations that a team of detectives were able to identify the defendants, arrest them and refer them to the Public Prosecution and then to the Misdemeanor Court, which fined each of them Dhs10,000. The Court of Appeal, however, overturned the verdict, ordering them to jointly pay the sum of money involved in the crime.

After the criminal judgment became final, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit in the civil court seeking the return of the seized amount plus a legal interest for the period during which she was deprived of her funds.

To support her lawsuit, she submitted documents including copies of the criminal judgments and a certificate from the Public Prosecution confirming that the judgment was final, noting that the defendants’ seizure of her funds had caused her direct financial harms.

The court affirmed that a final criminal judgment constituted evidence before civil courts that the incident took place and had to do with the perpetrators. It also affirmed that the elements of civil liability were clearly present as a harmful act i.e. loss of funds occurred and a causal relationship between the act and the result was established.

The court indicated that compensation would include the return of the funds plus a legal interest at 5 per cent per annum from the date of the legal claim until full payment.

Legal advisor Dr. Alaa Nasr said the ruling embodied a well-established legal principle, namely the binding force of criminal judgments before civil courts with regard to the proven act and its attribution to the perpetrator.

This means that a final criminal judgment is conclusive and cannot be re-litigated and binding on civil courts regarding factual findings.

It also applies the rules of tort liability, which require compensation for harms when harms are done, he added.