Two scammers trick woman and drain Dh40,900 from her bank account

Abu Dhabi: A court in Al Dhafra has ordered two men to repay Dh40,900 to a woman after finding that they emptied her bank account through a deception that began with a phone call posing as an official follow-up to a complaint she had previously filed.

In its ruling, the court also awarded the woman Dh4,090 in compensation for material damages, holding both defendants jointly liable for the losses caused by the fraud.

According to Emarat Al Youm, the woman filed a civil case against the two foreign nationals after one of them contacted her claiming to be an employee at an official entity and referring to an earlier complaint she had submitted. 

He instructed her to download a mobile application, after which funds were rapidly transferred out of her account to several other bank accounts. She later discovered that her account had been fully drained.

The two defendants had already been convicted in a criminal case and sentenced to imprisonment and deportation for unlawfully obtaining money belonging to another person in circumstances indicating the illicit origin of the funds.

During the civil proceedings, both defendants were brought to court from custody with the assistance of a court-appointed translator. 

The first defendant admitted that Dh22,500 had been transferred from the claimant’s account into his own, saying an unknown individual later asked him to convert the amount into digital currency in exchange for a Dh250 fee. 

He confirmed that he had not returned any of the money. The second defendant denied prior knowledge of the Dh18,409 deposited into his account, stating that another person had opened the account for him under the promise of employment, without paying him any salary.

In its reasoning, the court said the fault established in the criminal judgment formed the same legal basis for the civil claim, and that the criminal conviction conclusively proved the unlawful act, its legal characterisation and its attribution to the defendants. Their admissions that none of the money had been returned further supported the claimant’s case.

The court ruled that the woman had suffered clear material harm by being deprived of her funds and the ability to benefit from them, warranting compensation.

It ordered the first defendant to repay Dh22,500 and pay Dh2,250 in damages, and the second defendant to repay Dh18,409 and pay Dh1,840 in damages, along with proportional legal costs. All other claims were dismissed.