Dubai: A fish salesman has been sentenced to two years in jail for stealing around 900kg of shrimps worth Dh87,500 and selling it to seafood restaurants.

The 43-year-old Egyptian vendor, S.A., who worked for the Dubai Fishermen’s Cooperative Association (DFCA), struck secret deals with seafood restaurants and promised to provide them with around 100 boxes of shrimps without obtaining the DFCA’s permission.

The Dubai Court of First Instance also fined S.A. Dh87,500 and ordered him to repay the same amount after convicting him of abusing his duty at the government-owned DFCA and stealing tens of boxes of shrimps between March and September of 2014.

The accused was sentenced in absentia after he failed to appear in court and enter a plea.

Presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi said the defendant will be deported following the completion of his punishment.

Records said the defendant was responsible for the purchase orders at DFCA as well as being a fish warehouse supervisor. He abused his job and stole shrimp boxes according to records and also broke into the warehouse and stole boxes on different occasions.

A manager at the DFCA testified that one of the employees informed him that a person had broken the warehouse’s locks in September.

“I headed to the warehouse location and saw the broken lock. We formed an investigation committee and when we questioned S.A., he confessed that he used a hard tool to break the lock. He also confessed that he stole 23 boxes of shrimps and sold them to a seafood restaurant for Dh16,200. Further investigations revealed the accused carried out a number of other similar thefts. We discovered he had agreed with seafood eateries to provide them with nearly 100 boxes of shrimps … he managed to take 68 boxes during his tenure as the warehouse supervisor. However when he was no more the supervisor, he broke the lock and stole the remaining boxes in order to honour his agreement,” the manager claimed.

The accused was quoted admitting to prosecutors that he abused his duties and handed over the shrimp boxes to the restaurants without DFCA’s consent or knowledge.

The defendant is entitled a retrial as per the Criminal Procedures Law, considering he was sentenced in absentia.