Ex-staff embezzles Dh100,000 to help sick father

Dubai: A female employee at the Emirates Post Holding Group has admitted that she forged receipts to embezzle around Dh100,000 that she needed to help her sick father in the Philippines.

The 33-year-old Filipina, A.A., who formerly worked as a data operator at the group, was said to have forged collection receipts of Emirates ID and embezzled nearly Dh100,000 in public funds.

“Yes, I am guilty. I forged those receipts and embezzled money,” said A.A. when she entered a guilty plea before the Dubai Court of First Instance.

Prosecution records cited the defendant admitting that she had abused her former public job and embezzled the money and wired the amount to her sick father to pay for his treatment.

According to the charge sheet, prosecutors said A.A. was responsible for collecting the fees of issuing Emirates ID cards. So she abused her public job and embezzled the money using forged receipts.

Prosecutors said A.A. tampered with 100 collection receipts by putting amounts less than the collected payments so she could pocket the money.

Records said the alleged amount was stolen between March and October 2012.

An Emirati director at Emirates Post testified that the finance department discovered that some employees [including A.A.] had failed to credit some funds collected from Emirates ID transactions.

“I received an e-mail from the finance department informing me that some funds had not been credited. We checked with the companies who had applied for several transactions for processing Emirates ID cards, and it was discovered that all those receipts were issued by A.A. The defendant was referred to an internal investigation that exposed her involvement in forging the receipts and embezzling the funds. She asked me to grant her one week to repay the Dh100,000 before referring the matter to the police. She confessed that she had tampered with the collection receipts and mentioned unreal amounts and companies’ names,” the director claimed to prosecutors.

Presiding judge Maher Salama Al Mahdi will pronounce a judgement on March 27.