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RTA ex-staff accused of issuing 180 fake licences

Dubai - The alleged wrongdoings took place in and prior to 2011.

A former employee with the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) stood trial on Thursday accused of issuing 180 illegal driving licences.
The 36-year-old Emirati man is accused of opening bogus files for people applying for driving licences and then issuing the licences without going through the regular procedures which include the driving tests and presenting the necessary documents.
The former employee has been charged in the Court of First Instance with forgery and use of forged electronic documents. The alleged wrongdoings took place in and prior to 2011.
"I was assigned with verifying the authenticity of eight driving licences in 2011. Al Qusais Police had sent us a letter regarding those licences. After double-checking them, I found they were fake. They were processed through the defendant's user access privilege," an officer at the RTA's licensing institution said.
"I reviewed the archives and found that the holders of those licences did not have traffic file and driving licence numbers in the system. No personal documents on the relevant individuals were kept in the data system."
The same officer added: "By tracking the transactions processed by the employee in question, I found that he unlawfully issued 173 other driving licences which were all fake.  "On March 30, 2015, an Asian man visited the RTA to apply for a replacement for his driving licence. He was one of the individuals who obtained their licences in a deceitful way.  The Asian claimed a Pakistani man gave him the driving licence for Dh17,000. He wrote and signed an acknowledgment of that," the officer told the prosecutor.
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