Dubai: 5 jailed for kidnapping, forcing businessman to transfer Dh2.5 million in digital coins

The Dubai Criminal Court has sentenced five defendants, including two fugitives, to three-year in prison and fined them Dh2.5 million.

The Court instructed the authorities to deport them to their native countries after their prison term. The Dubai Court of Appeal has upheld the ruling.

The Asian expats have been convicted for kidnapping, detaining, assaulting and forcing an investor to transfer Dh2.5 million of digital currency to their wallet.

In November 2021, five people assaulted the victim while parking his vehicle in front of his home in Dubai's Al Barari area.

One of them threatened to kill him and put a firearm behind his back, another assaulted him, and a third person put a black plastic bag over his face. They then took him to their vehicle and drove away.

The victim added that he was subjected to torture inside the vehicle before they took him to an unknown location and asked him to transfer the digital currencies in his possession.

After hours of the continuous assault, the victim communicated with his wife to transfer a digital currency to his wallet and then made five transfers of 243 digital coins, estimated at Dh2.5 million.

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They dropped him near his residence and threatened to kill him if he informed the police.

A policeman stated that a team of investigators in Dubai Police arrived at the site of the victim's report and was able to identify the people and arrested three of them.

They admitted in the investigations that one of the fugitives had a financial dispute with the victim, so he planned with the rest of the people to kidnap him and steal the digital currencies.

• Dubai