Former sales manager in Dubai jailed for collecting Dh17m in kickbacks

Dubai: A former sales manager has been sentenced to three years in jail on Thursday for collecting Dh17 million in unlawful commissions for selling and reselling properties in the Dubai Industrial City (DIC).

The Dubai Court of First Instance also fined the 32-year-old Emirati Dh17 million and ordered to repay the money collected as commissions.

The Emirati was charged with asking a number of DIC clients to pay him unlawful commissions to the tune of Dh17 million for selling and leasing DIC properties. The suspect allegedly collected the money in cheques or through bank transfers to the account of an electronics company that was registered in the names of his sister and mother. According to the arraignment sheet, A.A. was in charge of the electronics company's accounts.

An Emirati DIC senior executive claimed in his statement that between June 2006 and July 2007 the defendant collected about Dh30 million in payments from several customers.

"The defendant, who used to deal with customers directly, was in charge of booking commercial and industrial properties to sell or lease them to clients. Reportedly, he used to inform his customers that the property they desired had been booked by another customer. Then he used to convince those customers to pay extra fees and to deposit these fees in the electronics company's accounts," the senior executive told the Public Prosecution.

The witness testified that the suspect would transfer the ownership of the property after he had received his commission.

"While following up on our services with our clients, we coincidentally discovered what the defendant had been up to... I met with a client who claimed that the suspect requested Dh800,000 as a kickback to rent a certain property.

"Upon confronting him with our findings, the suspect said it was an error and returned the money," claimed the executive, adding that he had asked the internal audit department to make an inventory.