DUBAI More than 6,800 people on Dubai Police’s wanted list for financial crimes were arrested in the first eight months of this year, a top police official told XPRESS.
The department also recover-ed Dh1.8 billion in connection with these crimes, according to Major General Khalil Ebrahim Al Mansouri, Assistant to the Dubai Police Chief for Criminal Investigation Affairs.
“The crimes are varied. We have suspects accused of robberies, bounced cheques, dishonest business deals and scams, while others even have drug charges against them. Many of the suspects were reported to us through residents and companies,” he said.
“By arresting the 6,840 wanted persons, we closed 8,700 reports since some of them have a number of allegations filed against them.”
According to Al Mansouri, three teams from the wanted persons division were dispatched to police stations around Dubai under the instructions of Major General Khamis Mattar Al Mazeina, Chief of Dubai Police. “The teams keep shifting around the city,” Al Mansouri said. “Each team will stay at a police station at a time. They relocate only when they’ve fully accomplished their goal and arrested those on the list, who are known to be in the area.”
Investigation team
An investigation team is tasked with verifying the accusations after they receive a report, he said.
“There was an Arab man accused of stealing and cheating. We nicknamed him ‘Mercury’ since he would quickly vanish every time we closed in on him. A 25-man team was dispatched to investigate and monitor his activities,” Al Mansouri told XPRESS. “We arrested him 51 days after investigations began.The Arab managed to break out of the detention cell, [but] we caught him again two days later. He is now in the custody of Public Prosecution.”
Among the top suspects on the list was a European man accused of swindling Dh145 million and an Asian who had over 60 complaints filed against him.
“Prioritising is essential,” said Al Mansouri. “We tend to look at those who are more active and have more reports filed against them. This is to ensure that more people are not harmed by them.”
Al Mansouri urged residents to report crimes to the Criminal Investigation Department at 800CID. “We received almost 7,000 calls this year,” said Al Mansouri. “They were immeasurably helpful. It is our duty to reduce crime to a bare minimum and we can only accomplish that with the help of the public.”
