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Former financial services director handed suspended jail term for forging papers, pocketing money
Dubai: A former financial services director at Dubai Financial Market [DFM] was convicted of forging three receipts of investors' profits in stocks worth Dh1.8 million and embezzling Dh448,000.
The 37-year-old Indian, M.A., [formerly at DFM] forged three e-receipts of the profits in stocks that those investors had made in DFM in 2014 and forged three cheques [worth Dh1.8 million] and encashed one of them for Dh448,000 in 2015.
The Dubai Court of First Instance fined M.A. Dh448,000 and handed him a one-year suspended imprisonment for abusing public office, forging e-documents and official papers and embezzling public funds.
The defendant had pleaded not guilty in court.
The accused abused his former job at DFM as a financial services director to forge the three receipts of three investors [a cargo company and two banks], according to records, and the cheques and then used one of those cheques to pocket the money.
M.A. registered his name as if he had invested in the stocks of those investors, then falsely mentioned his name as a beneficiary and encashed a Dh448,000 cheque, said records.
He forged email signatures and e-papers to pocket the money after signing the cheque himself.
A legal consultant at DFM testified that the defendant abused his authority to embezzle the money.
"He used to communicate with the investors to notify them about their profits and the typing centres that issue the cheques to those investors. He obtained three cheques that were issued in his name without the DFM's knowledge or consent. Then he used one of those cheques [as a bogus investor] and encashed it. He admitted that he had forged the cheques when we questioned him," said the consultant.
Police apprehended the defendant shortly after the DFM's management lodged a complaint against him.
The primary ruling remains subject to appeal.
© Gulf News 2016
