Six jailed, fined Dh1.8b in Dubai bank fraud case

In one of the biggest fraud cases worth Dh1.8 billion, the Dubai Court of First Instance jailed six expatriates, including two former ex-Dubai Islamic Bank employees to 10 years each.
Presiding Judge Fahmi Mounir Fahmi on Wednesday, also fined the guilty Dh1.8 billion and ordered them to repay the amount jointly to Dubai Islamic Bank (DIB). The judge also fined three of the defendants Dh7.2 million and ordered them to jointly repay the amount to the bank.

The Dubai Public Prosecution had charged the seven suspects — three Britons, two Pakistanis, a Turk and an American — with embezzling public funds, deliberately helping others to embezzle public funds, inflicting intentional loss to the government and its interests, unlawful profiting and forging official documents and using them.

The public prosecution accused the two Pakistani executives (former bank employees), the finance manager of the bank and his deputy of aiding and abetting the embezzlement of public funds, inflicting intentional loss to the government and its interests, and the forging of official documents.

The two bank employees facilitated the forging of documents and increased the credit limit for two businessmen against taking money. In return, the manager received a bribe of $750,000 while the deputy received $950,000.  The American is at large after

embezzling $2 million and establishing a company. He also forged invoices, documents of sales and purchase transactions. The British businessman along with the Turkish national and two other British nationals embezzled Dh1,841,000 from the bank using forged documents facilitated by the bank employees.

Meanwhile, the seventh suspect, a British businessman, has been acquitted. All the six including two suspects who are at large will be deported after serving the jail term. All six suspects can appeal the court ruling within 15 days.

The fraud caused a loss of $501 million (around Dh1.8 billion) worth of public funds belonging to DIB. The case was referred by the Dubai Public Prosecution to the court on March 30, 2009.