Dubai: A bank sales manager and two staffers have been jailed for six months each for issuing 72 credit cards for bogus clients based on forged papers in a Dh1.5 million embezzlement case.
The 39-year-old Pakistani sales manager conspired with his two countrymen security guards, 38 and 23, in forging papers in the names of 72 bogus clients and submitting those papers to the bank to issue credit cards in May 2017.
On Monday, the Dubai Court of First Instance convicted the Pakistani trio of forging papers of bank clients and processing credit card applications.
According to the primary ruling, presiding judge Urfan Omar acquitted a Pakistani woman banker and seven men, two Indians and five Pakistanis, of aiding and abetting the three defendants.
The three convicts will be deported after serving their jail terms and all the forged papers will be confiscated by the court, said presiding judge Omar in court on Monday.
A senior executive at the bank’s investigation department received the complaint of a client who said he had been issued a credit card without his permission or request, said records.
After further investigation by the bank’s concerned department it was discovered that the sales manager had processed more than 70 credit cards based on forged papers in cooperation with others.
Police interrogations led to the arrest of the 39-year-old sales manager and 10 other people.
The 39-year-old defendant pleaded not guilty and admitted that he had embezzled the money when he appeared in court.
The remaining suspects pleaded not guilty.
The bank executive said the embezzlement was discovered after a client’s complaint.
“In his complaint, the client said a credit card had been issued in his name without his request or permission … and Dh38,000 had been spent from it. The client informed us during our inquiry that he had met a banker [one of the suspects] and provided him with his personal papers when he applied for a personal loan. Further interrogations exposed that the credit card had been processed based on forged documents,” the bank executive told prosecutors.
Monday’s ruling remains subject to appeal.
