Three men scammed two men out of Dh600,000 after selling them cars using fake documents, Dubai Criminal Court heard on Thursday.
Two Armenian men, aged 33 and 35, and a 29-year-old Iraqi man are charged with forgery, use of forged documents and fraudulently obtaining Dh600,000 during September 2013.
Prosecutors said the trio forged RTA ownership certificates for 38 of the 45 vehicles they agreed to sell to the two Syrian men, aged 51 and 36.
The Syrians told prosecutors they agreed to buy 45 cars from the defendants who claimed they bought the vehicles from Copra auction company.
The men paid the alleged scammers for five cars and were given the ownership certificates.
"When we went to the company to take the vehicles, they checked the certificates and told us that they were altered," said the 51-year-old.
Records show that the 33-year-old Armenian accused, who remains at large, had registered his name with the auction house's electronic system and allegedly processed the car sales to the Syrian men under the name of one of the other two defendants.
"We checked who originally bought the cars then sold them to the victims through our electronic system and we found it was an Armenian man," said a British witness from Copra auction house.
He said the cars originally belonged to Dubai Taxi which offered them for sale through an auction.
He said the cars – which included Hyundai sonatas, Toyota Camrys and Nissan Altimas - were kept in a showroom in Ras Al Khor and are only handed to the buyer after an electronic auction is held.
"When a car is sold and paid for, we hand the buyer an ownership certificate but we leave the name of the buyer empty in case he wanted to resell the car, when we checked the ownership certificates provided by the defendants, we discovered that they all belonged to one car, but the number of engines was changed on each one, basically they bought one car and when they were given its certificate, they forged 38 copies of it," said a Jordanian employee of the auction company.
The three defendants were not present in court to face charges.
The next hearing will be on September 18.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
The bio
Academics: Phd in strategic management in University of Wales
Number one caps: His best-seller caps are in shades of grey, blue, black and yellow
Reading: Is immersed in books on colours to understand more about the usage of different shades
Sport: Started playing polo two years ago. Helps him relax, plus he enjoys the speed and focus
Cars: Loves exotic cars and currently drives a Bentley Bentayga
Holiday: Favourite travel destinations are London and St Tropez
Email sent to Uber team from chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi
From: Dara
To: Team@
Date: March 25, 2019 at 11:45pm PT
Subj: Accelerating in the Middle East
Five years ago, Uber launched in the Middle East. It was the start of an incredible journey, with millions of riders and drivers finding new ways to move and work in a dynamic region that’s become so important to Uber. Now Pakistan is one of our fastest-growing markets in the world, women are driving with Uber across Saudi Arabia, and we chose Cairo to launch our first Uber Bus product late last year.
Today we are taking the next step in this journey—well, it’s more like a leap, and a big one: in a few minutes, we’ll announce that we’ve agreed to acquire Careem. Importantly, we intend to operate Careem independently, under the leadership of co-founder and current CEO Mudassir Sheikha. I’ve gotten to know both co-founders, Mudassir and Magnus Olsson, and what they have built is truly extraordinary. They are first-class entrepreneurs who share our platform vision and, like us, have launched a wide range of products—from digital payments to food delivery—to serve consumers.
I expect many of you will ask how we arrived at this structure, meaning allowing Careem to maintain an independent brand and operate separately. After careful consideration, we decided that this framework has the advantage of letting us build new products and try new ideas across not one, but two, strong brands, with strong operators within each. Over time, by integrating parts of our networks, we can operate more efficiently, achieve even lower wait times, expand new products like high-capacity vehicles and payments, and quicken the already remarkable pace of innovation in the region.
This acquisition is subject to regulatory approval in various countries, which we don’t expect before Q1 2020. Until then, nothing changes. And since both companies will continue to largely operate separately after the acquisition, very little will change in either teams’ day-to-day operations post-close. Today’s news is a testament to the incredible business our team has worked so hard to build.
It’s a great day for the Middle East, for the region’s thriving tech sector, for Careem, and for Uber.
Uber on,
Dara
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
