Dubai: Five men were charged with impersonating police and robbing more than Dh659,000 from a company in Naif, and two other men were charged with aiding and abetting the crime, a court heard on Tuesday.
The five men were identified as Emiratis A.S.S.A., 32, and M.M.H.A. charged in absentia, Indian T.S.T., 60, and Pakistani R.A.S.T., 40, and M.A.A.A.
Indians A.A.K., and A.B.T., both 27, were charged with abetting the crime as they provided information about where the company employees kept large sums of money.
The incident took place on June 2 when the five suspects went to the company office at around 12.45pm.
A.A.K. waited outside the building, and the other four men went up posing as police officers and forced the employees to hand over the money.
According to court papers, A.S.S.A. told the employees that he was from Abu Dhabi Criminal Investigation Department (CID) and asked for the names of some of employees, including the partner. Then he said that the company was carrying out illegal activities and that the partner had ties with terrorist groups.
One suspect then asked an employee to cut the power cables of the CCTV cameras and took out the hard disk of the recorder. Another suspect spoke into what looked like a walkie-talkie and asked the victims to hand over their mobile phones.
The four employees who were present at the office handed over five phones. However, one of them did not give his phone as it was charging and the suspects did not notice. This phone was later used by the victims to call the company’s partner, who informed the police.
A.S.S.A. told the victims to open all doors so they could search the office. He told one employee to open drawers, take out papers, and put them back until he saw the safe. The suspect told one employee to take out Dh650,000 from the safe and put it into a plastic bag.
The suspects also stole Dh6,800 from an employee’s wallet and another Dh9,990 kept on a desk.
The suspects divided the money among themselves.
A.S.S.A. was the first to be arrested at a shopping mall’s parking lot and he confessed to the crime and named the other six suspects during questioning. The others were all arrested except for M.M.H.A., who had already left the country.
The six men admitted to their crime before the Public Prosecution.
