Dubai: Next time you hand over a copy of your passport to someone, be careful: the stranger could easily use your identity for unlawful activities.
Two Dubai expats, both Indians, learnt the hard way, having been dragged into two multi-million dirham forgery cases after their passport details were fudged without their knowledge.
Accounts executive Selly Furtado, 27, was working in a Sharjah Airport Industrial Free Zone (SAIF) company on a temporary contract of six months. The shock he got earlier this year when applying for a new job on completion of his old contract, he says, was the rudest ever.
“An officer from Bur Dubai police station called me one day in January, saying they were making an enquiry and I needed to see him. When I went, I was locked up. Apparently a bank account was opened in my name and a Dh4 million transaction had taken place,” says Furtado, who has since remained out of a job, out of visa and with his passport in police custody pending investigation.
In a limbo
Initial probe revealed that someone had used a forged passport with Furtado’s name and the same passport number even though other details were different in that passport. “The case has been going on for almost nine months. The police tell me I cannot get my passport back until the case is resolved,” says Furtado. He has since been living on charity and help extended by friends and a local church.
“Nobody is willing to offer a job due to the passport problem. I’ve lost seven job offers. I don’t know when this case will get over,” says the commerce graduate who regrets not having been able to send any money to his single mother back home in Goa for over a year.
The situation may not be as desperate for Shyam Vaddi, 32, today, having been acquitted of a money laundering charge earlier this year, but it was a living nightmare, he says, as long as criminal proceedings against him lasted.
“Last May I received an appointment letter for a new job after which I put in my papers, but days later I got a call from my HR saying that my cancellation was on hold at the Al Rafaa police station. Worried, I went to the police station only to be told that I had to be photographed and fingerprinted. Soon after they put me in jail,” recalls the man from Hyderabad about the night he was jailed for the first time in his life.
“The next day an officer said I had issued nine cheques in my name amounting to almost a million dirhams from a current account in an Indian bank. I couldn’t have had any current account in any bank as my salary was too low,” says Vaddi whose father, working in Sharjah then, eventually had to present his passport to get him released.
“After a week I received a call from the Public Prosecution who showed me the account holder’s passport copy. Every detail - except the picture, signature, date of issue and expiry - matched those of mine,” says the former shift supervisor at a petrol station.
“Finally after a series of forensic tests and several rounds to the public prosecutor for months, my case was cleared and I could collect my passport but not before my visa had expired,” says Vaddi.
“What I went through was painful for both my family and friends. I not only lost more than six months of earnings but also ended up paying Dh3,000 to get my expired visa sorted after getting back my passport,” says the man who claims to have been offered a job of Dh5,500 plus perks.
“I lost my dignity, trust and confidence in myself for no fault of mine.”
‘With right advocacy and evidence, victim will prevail’
Opening bank accounts in Dubai with forged passports is extremely difficult, said Ludmila Yamalova, managing partner of Dubai-based HPL Yamalova & Plewka – JLT. “Identity theft and corresponding crimes are highly unlikely in the UAE. Since the UAE introduced the Emirates ID it has become practically impossible for anyone to impersonate someone else, especially at a bank. However if someone has been charged with fraud his defence will be that fraud was committed on him and so the actions of the fraudster cannot be imputed to the victim. While it is a serious inconvenience and expense, the only way out of the situation is to go through the motions of the court proceedings. With the right advocacy and evidence in place, the victim will however prevail.”
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