Dubai: A gang of four people were arrested in Dubai for forging official documents to issue entry permits for 12 people under the sponsorship of Emiratis, Gulf News has learnt.
Senior advocate general Ali Humaid Bin Khatem, Head of the Naturalisation and Residency Prosecution, said that four Asian men forged power of attorney of Emiratis and presented it with copies of Emiratis ID to Tasheel centres to issue visa permits.
According to prosecution, the gang issued visa permits for 12 Asian men for Dh5,000 each.
“The scam was discovered when a man went to immigration searching for his Emirati sponsor who denied issuing the permit under his name. After investigation, we discovered that a man was the mastermind behind the scam,” Bin Khatem told Gulf News.
Officials then arrested the man who admitted working as middleman between people seeking to come to Dubai and other three men who were getting the visas issued.
“He was providing the worker’s picture and details and send it to other gang members to issue the visa for Dh5,000.”
Bin Khatem said that the gang were paying money to unknown people to provide them with copies of Emiratis IDs of Emiratis.
They were forging power of attorney of the ID’s holder to present it to Tasheel centres to issue the entry permits.
However, Bin Khatem said that Tasheel employees weren’t involved in the scam as they couldn’t discover the forgery in the documents presented by the suspects.
“The employees were requesting the visa permits after filing the forms and attaching the documents presented to them. We found out that 12 people entered the country under sponsorship of several Emiratis.”
Dubai Public Prosecution charged the four suspects with forging official documents and using it to issue legitimate entry permits.
They were referred to Dubai Court of First Instance for trial.
Bin Khatem urges Tasheel centres to check the documents presented to them to issue entry permits under sponsorship of Emiratis before applying for the permit.
“We won’t stand still against such scams and people who forge documents to issue entry permits will be prosecuted and referred to criminal court,” Bin Khatem said.
According to UAE punishment law, anyone who forges official documents and use it should be jailed up to ten years and deportation for foreigners.
