Dubai: Three men have been jailed for one year each for breaking into a school’s accounting department and stealing Dh4.3 million in cheques and Dh44,200 in cash.

Records said the trio, two Yemenis and a Saudi, used during the heist a rented car that had a GPS tracking system which helped the police identify them.

The Yemeni defendants, 25-year-old M.S. and 30-year-old A.M., and the 33-year-old Saudi, Y.S., forced their way in to the accounting department, broke the safe open with tools and stole 654 cheques worth Dh4.3 million and cash.

The Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the defendants of breaking and entering, and stealing.

The rented car and hard tools will be confiscated while the defendants will be deported following the completion of their jail terms.

A police lieutenant said the GPS tracking system in the rented car helped them track the culprits after the heist that happened in October 2013.

“The rent office provided the police with the path that the car took after the heist. The device showed that the car parked before the school during the night when the incident happened. The Saudi was the first to be arrested considering that the car was rented in his name,” said the lieutenant.

Court records said the trio took advantage of the fact that the school’s two security guards were sleeping when they broke the accounting department’s window, went in and stole the money and cheques from the safe.

The defendants were also charged with causing Dh3,300 worth of damages in the school’s office equipment.

The trio entered an innocent plea.

The school’s assistant principal said his secretary informed him about the heist on a Friday afternoon.

“The culprits stole Dh44,200 cash that were placed in envelopes and 654 cheques. The guards were asleep when the defendants sneaked in. They failed to open the department’s door from inside so they went out to the schoolyard, broke the window and sneaked in,” he claimed.

The lieutenant said surveillance cameras exposed two men holding torchlights and trying to open the department’s door.

“We seized Dh8,000 with M.S., Dh12,750 with A.M. and Dh109,67 with Y.S. Police also confiscated the rented car, in which we seized an iron scissor, hammer, six screwdrivers, pliers, gloves and facemasks that the defendants used during the heist,” claimed the lieutenant.

The primary ruling remains subject to appeal within 13 days.