Dubai: The arrest of a scam artist was used by Dubai Police as a case study while training employees on how to deal with forgers in incidents of financial swindling and deception.
As part of a workshop on Wednesday at the Dubai Police Officer’s Club held to train employees of banks and money exchange houses to avoid being victims of swindling and deception, police displayed the details of how an African scam artist was arrested last week after conning 50 victims by misusing an Emirates ID card.
“An Egyptian resident in Saudi Arabia contacted Dubai Police by email complaining that he had wired money to the suspect to buy mobile phones but the latter disappeared,” Captain Ahmad Al Samahi from the Anti-Economic Crimes Department said in the training session.
The victim met the African suspect on Facebook and the latter collected the money using an Emiratis ID card belonging to another person who had lost his ID card.
“We went to the exchange house and got the details of the Emirates ID card and arrested the man but he proved that he had lost his ID card.”
Police managed to get a picture of the suspect and an employee in the exchange house identified him and told police the suspect came every day to the company to collect wired money.
“The next day, the employee called us saying the suspect was in the exchange house and we arrested him. He used the same ID card to receive wired money from many people from April 10 to 20,” Capt Al Samahi said.
Police found a list containing more than 50 names of senders from countries like Australia, Africa and other Gulf countries.
Meanwhile, Lt-Colonel Adel Al Joker, director of Criminal Investigation Department (CID) at Dubai Police, said the session aimed to enhance the security in the banks and money exchange houses.
“We wanted to train the employees on how to know about fake notes and scam artists and how to identify the person in the ID card. We wanted to hear their problems and try to solve it to have zero worrying crimes in Dubai,” Lt-Col Al Joker said.
Despite Dubai Police recording two crimes this year when bank employees were robbed after leaving a bank, police said they had seen a 90 per cent drop of crimes in banks and money exchange houses last year compared to 2016.
“We don’t have serious robberies or thefts recently because of our efforts and work with our partners to solve the problem. Most of the cases have been minor and they happened due to the negligence of employees,” Lt-Col Al Joker added.
Osama Al Rahma, vice-chairman of the Foreign Exchange and Remittance Group, said they have about 11,000 employees working in 75 exchange houses operating in the country.
“Our partnership with Dubai Police helps in training the employees to avoid falling prey to deception or forgery. We also raise the awareness of the customers to avoid carrying big amounts of cash and be careful after leaving an exchange house,” Al Rahma added.
Forgery of dirhams rare
Recently, Dubai Police were alerted about an unknown man who deposited fake Dh100 notes in an ATM and the machine couldn’t recognise the counterfeit bills.
“An employee in the bank discovered the fake notes and alerted police. We arrested the suspect while he was trying to leave the country. Forgery incidents of dirhams are rare due to the high standards of the bills,” Captain Al Samahi said.
