Dubai: A residency officer was on Wednesday sentenced to a year in jail for taking Dh40,000 in bribes from a businessman to process 76 transactions of family residency visas and renewals.

The Emirati officer at the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs (GDRFA), Y.E., accepted bribes from the Pakistani businessman, R.B., to process the family residencies or renew current residencies, illegally using forged papers between August and September last year.

The Dubai Court of Frist Instance also sentenced R.B. to one year in jail for offering bribes to Y.E., who abused his duty to process illegal transactions and forge documents.

The Pakistani and Emirati defendant had pleaded not guilty and refuted their accusations.

Presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi fined the defendants Dh40,000 each and ordered Y.E. to repay the same bribe amount [Dh40,000].

The Pakistani accused will be deported following the completion of his jail term.

Y.E. took Dh500 in bribe to issue family residencies, Dh300 for children’s residencies and Dh300 for individual residencies, said records.

He abused his authority and accessed GDRFA’s e-system and then issued the residencies requested by R.B. without obtaining the required documents to do so.

Y.E. issued the illegal residencies without taking copies of rent contracts, marriage contracts, work contracts and other official papers that are usually required for GDRFA transactions, according to records,

A GDRFA senior officer testified that an informant notified them that Y.E. had been accepting bribes to process family residencies in an illegal manner.

“The informant cautioned us that the Y.E. had been breaching the rules and processing residencies for the families of applicants, whose status did not allow them to bring in their families. Further investigations revealed that the defendant had been dealing with R.B. and processing the illegal transactions for him. During an internal inquiry, Y.E. admitted that he had known R.B. since 2007. Some time in 2014, according to Y.E.’s statement, he said R.B. offered to pay him money to issue residencies for families or renew residencies for current residents. The Emirati officer claimed that in the beginning he refused before later accepting upon the Pakistani businessperson’s persistence. During the interrogation, Y.E. alleged that he used to collect the applications from R.B. in the parking outside the office where he was stationed in Deira. Then he claimed that he would access the e-system and process the application in an illegal way and later hand over the residencies to R.B.,” claimed the ranking officer.

The duo admitted to prosecutors that they dealt in bribe, forged, and used forged documents to issue family residencies.

Wednesday’s ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.