Dubai: Three employees working with a Dubai-based developer, went on trial after they were accused of accepting Dh4 million in bribe and expensive gifts from a construction company to facilitate its work in a popular beach destination project off Jumeirah Beach Road.
The Indian employees, a deputy director of projects, M.T, and a project manager, P.P., and an engineer, M.N., who is still at large, have been accused of abusing their positions and accepting bribe amounting to Dh4 million from a Pakistani businessman, a Dubai Court of First Instance heard on Sunday morning.
According to official records, the 43-year-old businessman gifted the first defendant a paid trip to London with his family, including two-way first-class airline tickets.
Dh72,000 Rolex
A Rolex watch worth Dh72,000 ($19,603) was also given to him.
The three defendants facilitated work for the company owned by the Pakistani businessman in a project owned by the developer. They have been accused of leaking secret information of the developer in emails to the businessman, which caused the company losses worth around Dh9 million between 2014 and 2017.
The employees were also working for the benefit of the businessman in technical and administrative jobs, besides their roles with the developer.
A fifth defendant, a 50-year-old Canadian who works for the businessman, was also on trial for abetting a crime.
An executive in the developer’s company testified that the Pakistani’s company was the main contractor in the beach project and his illegal transactions were discovered in September 2017.
Arrest
“I was told that they were accepting money and gifts from the businessman to facilitate the work of his company. I summoned P.P., for questioning and he confessed on accepting Dh100,000. He told me that he couldn’t do what he did without assistance from his manager at work,” the 45-year-old Egyptian executive said in records.
The developer filed a case against the defendants who were arrested and questioned by prosecutors.
The four defendants appeared in the courtroom on Sunday, but the judge rescheduled the hearing to March 19 to present an updated accusation sheet.
