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Mobile vendors feel heat of crackdown

AJMAN — The trend of door-to-door vendors in residential areas has declined over the last three months due to an intensified crackdown organised by the Ajman municipality.

Yahya Al Raya, Assistant Director-General of Trade Licence Affairs at the Municipality, said that inspectors during the campaign made efforts to search for mobile vendors who targeted housewives, bachelors at homes as well as customers at cafeterias.

The inspectors succeeded in catching a large number of them and confiscated their fake products which included pirated copies of pornographic DVDs, CDs, cosmetics, electronic items and expired foodstuff such as apples and oranges packed in boxes.

He added that the inspection campaign focussed its activities on Fridays after the sermon as many of these mobile sellers used to gather near the mosque to promote their products among the worshipers. Most of the items they sell have no origin.

The number of Chinese mobile vendors who knock at doors to promote the pornographic CDs has been reduced due to the efforts made by inspectors who caught many of them and confiscated their products. All the mobile sellers were found to have entered the country on visit visa.

Brigadier Rashid Muglad, head of the investigation section of Ajman Police, said during this year the cases related to pornographic CDs or DVDs have completely disappeared and not a single case of this kind has been mentioned in the police record this year.

He attributed this achievement to the coordination of the police and Municipality to combat this phenomena which was affecting the society. To launch a crackdown on this kind of the activities in all parts of the emirate, coordinated control and inspection by authorities in all the emirates is required, Muglad said.

He pointed out that most of the vendors who were earlier caught by the police were found to have police records in various cases and some of them were staying in the country illegally.

The role of the police is to ensure security in the society by fighting such kind of activities, as these sellers knock at the doors pretending to sell things but instead allegedly try to learn the situation of the house so that they can return back to commit crimes.

He urged the public to inform the nearest police station especially about Chinese vendors selling CDs or any other mobile vendors and to be careful when dealing with them ensuring that they are not allowed to enter the houses.

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