Dubai: A Dubai visitor has been sentenced to six months in jail, to be followed by deportation, for attempting to board a flight from Dubai to Rome using a fake French passport. The 25-year-old Moroccan man was arrested at Dubai International Airport after an Emirates airline employee suspected his documents.
In January 2021, a Kenyan employee of Emirates airline was checking passengers’ identity documents for a flight to Rome, when the defendant showed the fake French passport. “He showed his electronic boarding pass and a French passport. I noticed fake stamps of entry to and exit from Dubai. I asked him for his French ID, but he insisted that he only had his French passport,” said the 34-year-old Kenyan employee.
Records showed the defendant was trying to travel to Europe as he couldn’t get a visa on his Moroccan passport. The defendant admitted that he bought the fake passport for 3,000 euros (Dh13,000) to enter Italy. He had arrived in the UAE using his Moroccan passport and the passport forger shipped the fake passport to him in Dubai. He managed to get an electronic boarding pass using the French passport on the self-serving machines at Dubai airport.
Deception attempt failed
According to records, the defendant crossed Passport Control by getting his Moroccan passport stamped to leave the country. Once he reached the boarding gate, he showed his fake French passport along with the boarding pass. It was then that the alert airline employee caught him.
He later admitted to forging the entry and exit stamps on the French passport to hoodwink the employees at the airport. The Dubai Court of First Instance has additionally slapped the defendant with a Dh150,000 fine.
