Dubai businessman duped of Dh938,000 in bogus property deal

Two men allegedly defrauded a businessman of over Dh938,000 after forging the title deeds of two real estate units and falsely claiming one of them was the owner, the Court of First Instance was told.
One of the men, who worked at a real estate office, abused his job to gain the victim's trust and had him pay the money in cheques. The duo provided the Indian businessman with two forged ownership certificates.
The men, an Indian (age 44), and a runaway Pakistani (29) have been charged with fraud and forgery.
The incident took place on April 19, 2016, and was reported to Al Barsha police station.
"I saw an ad in 2016 about some property units for sale in the Dubai Marina area. I called the contact person and the Indian accused told me he owned the units. He said he wanted Dh2.3 million as the sale price," said the 29-year-old Indian businessman.
He was later shown the units by the accused and agreed to buy them. "After he showed me copies of title deeds that listed the second accused as owner, I handed him two cheques worth Dh938,080 in total.
"I issued the cheques to the Pakistani man in the real estate office where the first defendant worked. The other man cashed the cheques two days later and when I tried to contact him, I found he had left the country," the businessman told the prosecutor.
When the complainant checked with the Land Department, he discovered the units did not belong to the accused and that he had fallen victim to a fraud.
"The Indian accused had a long experience in the realty field. He had worked for us for nearly one month and had begun to bring in customers. But he suddenly absconded and we learned he had duped some customers," an Azerbaijani manager said.
mary@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai