Dubai: A cargo supervisor was sentenced to one year in jail for forging the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment’s stamp on a plant health certificate to allow a shipment of peanuts to be exported to Russia.
The 37-year-old Pakistani cargo supervisor forged the ministry’s stamp on the plant health certificate and given it to an Iranian merchant to submit to the Russian authorities, who refused to allow his shipment of peanuts into the market in 2014.
A Ministry of Climate Change and Environment’s employee discovered that the plant health certificate bore a forged stamp before alerting the police.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the cargo supervisor and an Indian man [who worked in the cargo industry] had been involved in processing the forged certificate.
On Wednesday, the Dubai Court of First Instance sentenced the 37-year-old in absentia to a year in jail for forging the ministry’s stamp on the plant health certificate and using the forged paper.
The Pakistani failed to appear and enter a plea.
Presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi said the accused will be deported after serving the punishment.
One of the ministry’s employees testified that they discovered that the certificate was forged shortly after the Russian authorities refused to permit the shipment into their market without an attested certificate.
The Iranian merchant said his countryman businessman told him in 2014 that he had shipped a consignment of peanuts to Jebel Ali Port to be reshipped to Russia.
“The shipment was not allowed into the Russian market due to the lack of a proper plant health certificate. I volunteered to help him and when I sent my employee to the ministry, he was informed that the certificate was forged,” testified the Iranian.
Police interrogation led to the arrest of the cargo supervisor, who was involved in forging the ministry’s stamp on the certificate.
