Dubai Civil Court orders fraudster to repay AED7.49m in fake server scam
A man used a forged Dubai Customs document to trick a company into transferring $2.04m for a fictitious server shipment. Dubai courts ordered full repayment plus AED500,000 compensation.
Dubai man convicted of AED7.49m server scam ordered to repay funds and pay compensation
The Dubai Civil Court has ordered a man to return AED7.486 million to a company he defrauded using a forged electronic customs declaration, emirates247.com reports. In addition to the principal amount, the court ordered him to pay AED500,000 in compensation for the material damages the company sustained.
The defendant convinced officials at the plaintiff company that he was arranging an import deal for computer servers through a company he owned. To lend the transaction an air of legitimacy, he presented a forged customs declaration attributed to Dubai Customs, inducing the company to transfer the funds across three separate bank transfers totalling $2.04 million — equivalent to AED7.486 million — to an account held by a company in an Asian country under his ownership.
The fraud came to light after the company discovered that the server shipment did not exist and that the customs document was counterfeit. It filed a criminal complaint, and the Dubai Public Prosecution referred the accused to the Criminal Court.
The Criminal Court convicted the defendant, sentencing him to one year in prison and imposing a fine of AED150,000, along with a further fine of AED7.486 million representing the full value of the embezzled funds. The court also ordered his deportation and the deletion of the forged data. The Court of Appeal upheld the ruling in full, making it final and binding after no appeal was submitted to the Court of Cassation.
In the civil proceedings, the Dubai Civil Court held that a final criminal judgment carries binding legal force before civil courts on matters it has conclusively decided — including the occurrence of the crime, its legal classification, and its attribution to the perpetrator. The court found that the defendant's liability had already been established, leaving it to assess the quantum of damages owed to the company.
Examining the documentary record, the court confirmed that funds were transferred from the plaintiff's account to the defendant's Asian-registered company through three bank transactions and that the defendant had seized and embezzled those funds with the intention of depriving the company of them.
On the question of compensation, the court found that the company had been deprived of the use and investment of its capital for more than a year, constituting material damage by denying it the opportunity to generate returns on the money. The court concluded that the elements of tort liability were satisfied and set compensation at AED500,000.
The civil court did, however, reject a separate claim seeking to hold the defendant's partner company jointly liable for the repayment and compensation. The court explained that a company possesses a distinct legal personality and financial liability independent of its individual partners. A criminal conviction against a partner alone, it ruled, is not sufficient to extend liability to the company for debts arising from that partner's personal conduct. The case file contained no evidence establishing that the claimed amount formed part of the company's own financial obligations, and the lawsuit rested primarily on the criminal judgment issued against the first defendant. The claim against the company was therefore dismissed.
The defendant alone was ordered to pay the principal sum, the AED500,000 compensation, and all court fees, expenses, and legal costs.
Source: Google News AE