Dubai: Eight men have been accused of kidnapping the friend of a gold merchant and stealing from him the merchant’s Dh1 million following a botched fake gold deal.

The eight men — three Ugandans, two Sudanese brothers, a Syrian, a Saudi and a Congolese — allegedly kidnapped the Indian friend from a hotel while he was carrying a bag full of Dh1 million in cash while they were carrying out a gold deal in January.

Four of the men were said to have contacted the Indian gold merchant twice to sell him gold bars, according to records, before the deal was called off after the merchant asked to check the genuineness and quality of the bars.

At the third time they met, the Indian merchant accompanied by his countryman friend met the men at a hotel in Deira.

One of the men escorted the merchant to a nearby store to check the genuineness of the bars while his friend waited with the cash at the hotel along with two of the men.

Shortly after that two other men [from among the eight] walked into the lobby, posed as policemen and asked the friend to walk outside with them.

Then they forced him into a vehicle, drove off to a construction site where they threatened him and stole the moneybag and ran away, according to records.

Prosecutors charged the eight suspects of kidnapping the merchant’s 25-year-old Indian friend, stealing Dh1 million and his mobile phone and assaulting him.

The Saudi suspect was solely charged with resisting arrest and assaulting the policeman who was apprehending him.

Jail wardens failed to bring one of the Ugandan suspects and the Syrian suspect from their detention and present them before the Dubai Court of First Instance where they were scheduled to enter their pleas.

The remaining six suspects pleaded not guilty and refuted all their accusations.

The gold merchant claimed to prosecutors that the incident happened after one of the Tanzanian brokers with whom he deals with contacted him and told him about a gold deal.

“The broker told me that his two friends, who are gold traders, were present in Dubai and wanted to discuss a gold deal with me. They called me and we met for the first time but when they refused to allow me to check the quality of the gold bars, I called off the deal. They called me a second time and the same thing happened. The third time we met, they had agreed to allow me to check the gold’s quality. My friend had accompanied me and he had the moneybag. I left him waiting in the hotel with two other men and went with a third man to check the gold. While I was in the taxi, my friend called me and told me that some men came to him and claimed to be from the police and they asked him to call me to return to the hotel. When I returned to the hotel, I discovered that my friend and the other two men had been missing. He did not answer my calls … 15 minutes later, my friend called me and told me that he had been kidnapped by a group of men who also took the moneybag from him and left him in the street. Thereafter, he came back and we reported the matter to the police,” he testified to prosecutors.

The 25-year-old friend confirmed the merchant’s statement.

A police lieutenant testified that primary interrogations led to the arrest of the suspects one at a time and that the gold bars turned out to be fake.

The trial continues.