Three men broke into a warehouse belonging to an electronics company and stole 600 Huawei mobile phones worth Dh290,000, Dubai Criminal Court was told.
On May 20, the men – two Pakistanis and a Bangladeshi aged between 37 and 44 – broke into the warehouse in Dubai.
The company’s 42-year-old Indian manager said he visited the warehouse after being told of the theft.
"We checked CCTV footage and saw a number of masked men breaking and entering then stealing the phones, one of them didn't enter and he was not masked, another was holding an iron bar," said the manager who called police.
Court records show that police tracked down the three defendants to Sharjah where they had already been arrested and were being held on charges of armed robbery.
"Our investigations revealed that they were involved in several similar incidents in Al Quoz and in Sharjah, when we identified them, we found that they were already in custody in Sharjah," said a policeman.
A fourth defendant – a 22-year-old Bangladeshi man – was arrested after police discovered he purchased the stolen mobiles from the three accused. He was charged with possessing the stolen phones but did not enter a plea when he attended court.
Police said one of the defendants admitted to stealing the phones, saying he and his accomplices planned the robbery a month prior. The man allegedly also said his share after selling the stolen devices for Dh127,000 was Dh18,000.
In court on Monday, the three men who allegedly stole from the warehouse denied an armed robbery charge.
The court will issue its verdict on March 25.