Dubai: A policewoman has been jailed for three months for stealing Dh2,000 from a purse left behind by a passenger at Dubai International Airport.
The 28-year-old policewoman was on duty at the airport when she stole the money from a purse that had been kept in a lost and found box in August.
Despite having pleaded innocent, the policewoman was found guilty by the Dubai Court of First Instance that convicted her of abusing her job at the police force and stealing the money from the purse.
Presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi also fined her Dh2,000.
A police corporal said an informant alerted them that the defendant had been spotted taking money from a wallet from the box of lost and found items.
“The accused was apprehended at the departure hall at Terminal 3. We checked the surveillance cameras and the footage showed the defendant taking the money from the box and hiding it. Upon confronting her with the findings, she admitted that she had stolen the money from the passenger’s purse. She said she stole US dollars and changed the currency to dirhams at the money exchange house at the airport. When she claimed that the money was in her car, we obtained prosecutors’ permission to search her car … but we did not find the money in her car upon searching it. Later she claimed that she had given the money to her friend, who wired it back to her to the same exchange house at the airport,” testified the corporal.
The suspect was quoted as admitting to prosecutors that she had stolen.
Wednesday’s ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
