Bank scam: Man gets jail sentence

DUBAI - The Dubai Court of First Instance yesterday sentenced S. M. I., a 37-year-old Pakistani national, to one year in prison for participating in a criminal plot with Z. A. S., a Pakistani bank employee. Together they siphoned off $37,000 from four fixed deposit accounts at the bank where Z. A. S. worked for 12 years.

By A Staff Reporter

Published: Sun 10 Aug 2003, 11:46 AM

Last updated: Wed 1 Apr 2015, 10:11 PM

The crime was only discovered after Z. A. S's death in September last year. The accused was also Z. A. S' room mate and the money siphoned off from the bank accounts was deposited into S. M. I's account.

The first time the bank came to know about the crime was when A. D. C., a bank customer, and his wife, came to check on the status of their fixed deposit account in November last year only to find their $16,000 had disappeared. They found the money had been transferred into S. M. I.'s account in June 1999. It was soon discovered that other fixed deposit accounts had been similarly broken, with $13,000 transferred out of one account in February 2000, $2,000 transferred out of another in May 2000 and $6,000 from yet another account in September 2000. Although the accused denied complicity in the crime and said his room mate might have seen his account number in the apartment and used it to transfer the money, a trail of ATM withdrawals from the account showed he knew of the existance of the sum.

Impersonation: The court also sentenced J. S. M., a 34-year-old Indian national, to one year in prison on charges of theft and impersonation. On March 27, the accused and two other men went to the apartments of A. M. I., a taxi driver, and his neighbour, at a bachelors' residence.

Posing as CID officials, they took gold jewellery which the driver's neighbour was wearing and forced her to open A. M. I.'s apartment as well, from which they stole Dh2,500.

The neighbour called A. M. I., in panic and told him what had happened. He rushed to his apartment and found his belongings scattered around and a drawer had been broken into from which Dh2,500 was missing.

At 9.30am on April 1, when A. M. I. was in his apartment, J. S. M. and another man dressed in local attire entered his flat pretending to be CID officers. A. M. I. asked the men to show him their identity cards. At that time the man in the kandoura punched A. M. I. in the chest. Both men then tried to leave, but A. M. I. managed to hold back J. S. M. with the help of his neighbours, while the unidentified man in local dress managed to escape.