Dubai clerk pockets Dh69,311 worth of travellers' VAT refund

Dubai - The man allegedly tampered with electronic data and stole amounts of money on different occasions.

A clerk, who used to work at a tax refunding company when he allegedly embezzled Dh69,311, stood trial at the Dubai Court of First Instance on Monday.
According to public prosecution records, the 34-year-old Filipino clerk was an employee at a company at Terminal 3 of the Dubai International Airport when he allegedly committed financial irregularities.
He was given access to the company's e-system and was authorised with refunding the travellers who claim VAT refund.
The man allegedly tampered with electronic data and stole amounts of money on different occasions. He would save the claimants' personal details in the system and falsely claim in the company's records that the refunding was by cash. But he would deposit it, in reality, later into credit cards that did not belong to the claimants.
He denied charges of embezzlement and e-forgery.
The alleged wrongdoings happened between January 21 and March 31 this year.
The general manager of the company told the prosecutor they found out about the embezzlement after a tourist approached them with a complaint that he did not get the VAT refund. "He said the money was not deposited in his credit card. When we went over the defendant's transactions, we noticed some travellers had requested to get their money back in cash but failed to get it because they did not want to miss their flights. We also found out that the defendant changed in the system the payment mode to be by credit card."
According to the general manager, the clerk used two credit cards repeatedly in most of such transactions. "He abused his post to pocket the travellers' money for himself."
The clerk will be sentenced on June 24.
mary@khaleejtimes.com

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