Suspect held for stealing jewellery, cash from hotels

Dubai: A man who is suspected of stealing valuables from hotel rooms in front of its employees, has been arrested.

The European suspect, G.A., used an innovative modus operandi to carry out the thefts. He used to go to the hotel's reception and claim that he had lost the key to his room when he was not even a guest in the hotel.

Police said when a person is able to take advantage of the recklessness of hotel staff at some well-known hotels and the recklessness continues until it raises security concerns, it becomes an issue where the staff should be interrogated and even terminated from jobs and deported if necessary.

They said lack of experience and over-confidence of the staff helped the person pull off the daring thefts.

The suspect used to approach the reception at a certain hotel and claim to have lost the key to his room and needed help to open the door.

After he entered the room, he asked the staff to open the locker in the room as he had forgotten the pin number of the locker.

The suspect was able to carry out two thefts in this way and stole a watch worth Dh71,000, jewellery and gold worth Dh123,000, besides $24,950 (about Dh 91,663), 600 Euro (about Dh3,256), 5,000 Rouble (about Dh750) and 17,000 Australian dollars (about Dh55,486) in cash.

Recklessness

The employees' recklessness of not abiding by the procedures of checking identity of guests before opening the rooms and lockers led to the thefts.

CID tracked G.A. down and came to know his identity 30 minutes after he left the country. Dubai Police thanked Lebanese authorities for their cooperation.