Cyber criminal gets six months in jail for job hoax

Dubai: A visitor has been jailed for six months after he promoted a teacher's job in the Education Ministry on a hoax website and defrauded a London-based teacher.

Convicting the 25-year-old Nigerian, Presiding Judge Hamad Abdul Latif Abdul Jawad of the Dubai Court of First Instance, said the accused, U.E. will be deported after the completion of his jail term.

The fraudster had earlier denied the charge of indulging in a cyber crime, which involved designing a hoax website claiming it to be that of the UAE's Education Ministry, promoting a teaching job and defrauding $4,100 (around Dh15,100) from a London-based Slovakian teacher.

Charge

The Public Prosecution charged the Nigerian of promoting a non-existent job vacancy which he posted on what records described as a bogus website titled "UAE Ministry of Education Language Studies".

"I am innocent… I didn't do anything wrong. I have no relation to what happened at all," U.E. said in his defence in court earlier.

Prosecutor Salem Bin Khadem earlier asked the jury to impose the toughest punishment applicable.

Public prosecution records showed that the teacher, V.N., informed the UAE embassy in London that she applied for the teacher's job posted on the hoax website. She allegedly claimed that she was referred to an e-mail address which belonged to U.E., whom she accused of pocketing her money.

Prosecutors said the accused and an unidentified number of suspects (who are still at large) advertised a job application as being issued by the Labour Ministry and promoted the Education Ministry's teaching job.

U.E. and the escapees were charged with committing a cyber crime by abusing the internet and defrauding and swindling V.N.'s money.

The accused convinced the teacher that she had been hired as an English language teacher after he e-mailed her the forged job application.

Records said the claimant wired money to a Dubai-based money exchange house.

Pleading innocence in court earlier this month, U.E. stated in his defence: "They accused me of something I didn't do. A person asked me to collect the money from an exchange house and that's what I did before handing the money to him."

An Emirati lieutenant from Dubai Police's section combating cyber crime testified that they tracked down the e-mail of the accused before they arrested him.