3 jailed, fined Dhs518,500 for possessing funds from electronic fraud in Dubai

Dubai Misdemeanors Court sentenced three people in-person to two months in jail to be followed by deportation and fined them Dhs518,500 after being convicted of possessing funds from electronic fraud.

The fine represented the total funds obtained from the crime by each perpetrator as follows: the first defendant was fined Dhs346,000, while the second was fined Dhs72,500 and the third Dhs100,000.

The case dated back to January 2026 when a person was subjected to a scam after opening a fake electronic link that he thought was related to consumer protection service.

The victim was directed to a WhatsApp conversation with a person who claimed to be a specialist employee and asked him to provide his bankcard data and card verification value under the pretext of completing the complaint procedures and paying fees.

The victim stated that he entered his data and transferred a small amount initially before being surprised by large sums of money being withdrawn from his bank accounts amounting to about Dhs660,000 over a short time, adding that he rushed to the competent authorities and filed a report about the incident.

Bank investigations and tracking of money movements showed that part of the amount was transferred to bank accounts inside the country, where bank transfers were detected from the victim’s account to the defendants’ account, while other amounts were transferred through a series of transfers to different accounts.

The investigations also revealed that the defendants received the money after being lured through a fake job advertisement on social media at the end of last year, when an unknown person asked them to use their bank accounts to receive sums and transfer them to other accounts in exchange for a commission.

The three defendants received the money involved in the crime in installments without knowing its source and then transferred it back to several accounts within the country, while keeping a portion of it for themselves.

The court stated that the evidence including the victim’s statements, bank reports, investigations by the competent authorities and the defendants’ confessions was consistent and complementary and proved beyond any doubt their involvement in possessing money obtained from a crime under circumstances that suggested it was from illegitimate source.

The court explained that merely possessing money in such circumstances was sufficient to establish the crime, even without certain knowledge of its illicit source, adding that the defendants dealt with large sums of money and rapid transfers without legitimate justification, which supported the availability of criminal intent on their part.