Dubai residency staff uses Filipino passport to forge Iranian's details

Dubai - In July of the same year, a request was also filed to have the Iranian passport's number changed and it was approved.

An employee at the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners' Affairs has stood trial for allegedly tampering with e-data and forging a passport for an Iranian engineer.
The Dubai Court of First Instance heard that the 36-year-old Emirati employee used the passport of a Filipino man, to which he added the details of the Iranian, 40. He changed the number of the passport and replaced the photo on it, public prosecution records showed. He used the copy of the forged passport and eventually stamped it with an employment visa for the engineer.
A police lieutenant at the criminal investigation department (CID) said he was checking visas when he found that an Iranian man, whose application for a visa had been rejected, was issued a visa, sponsored by a tourism agency in May 2018. "In July last year, an application was filed to get him an employment visa. In the application, it was wrongly said that he (the Iranian man) is Filipino. It was approved," the lieutenant told the prosecution investigators.
According to the officer, the application included a copy of a Filipino man's passport. However, the passport number was that of the Iranian man.
In July of the same year, a request was also filed to have the Iranian passport's number changed and it was approved. It carried then the same number of the Filipino passport.
"We tracked down a woman and a man who were involved in the forgery. When we interrogated the Iranian man about how he obtained the residence visa, he claimed he paid Dh85,000 for it to a woman and a man. He said he was not aware of the way the visa was issued. He claimed that the residency department employee used to accompany him to get the necessary procedures done. He went with him to the preventive medicine for fitness test and to other departments for other documents," the lieutenant said during the prosecution investigation.
A 33-year-old Syrian woman and a 47-year-old Egyptian manager are also standing trial in the case for criminal complicity. The woman is believed to have collected Dh10,000 for her part.
Another Iranian, a 37-year-old manager, allegedly paid Dh75,000 to get his transactions processed in a similar manner.
Prosecutors are pushing for strict penalties against each of the defendants. The case dates back to May 2019 and was registered at Al Qusais police station.
The trial will continue on September 16.
mary@khaleejtimes.com
 

• Dubai