Man kidnaps seven women from Dubai airport, gets 3-year jail

An unemployed man, who kidnapped seven housemaids from the Dubai International Airport after pretending he was from the recruitment office that had brought them to the country, has been ordered jailed for three years by a Dubai court.
Public prosecution records show the 29-year-old Egyptian man managed to kidnap the seven Asian women after falsely telling them he was a PRO from their recruitment office and then seizing their passports. He took them to several rooms in Dubai where he held them captive until he offered them to work for different families.
The accused also embezzled several amounts of money from more than four men after showing them forged employment contracts of the maids and falsely claiming he worked for that recruitment office.  
The Court of First Instance found him guilty of charges of kidnap, unlawful deprivation of freedom, fraud and embezzlement and forgery and ordered his deportation upon completion of his jail sentence.
A complaint was filed on August 27, 2017.
A 35-year-old Indonesian maid said she arrived in the UAE on July 6, 2017, to work as a housemaid for an Emirati family. "We were brought by a recruitment office located in Ajman. There were two other maids with me. We were waiting for the office PRO but the accused came and took our passports and mobile phones. He claimed to us he was from the recruitment agency. From the way he checked our papers, we believed he had verified our identities and then he asked us to accompany him. He took us to a flat in Dubai. He kept us there and told us we can't go outside. After he locked us inside, an Ethiopian woman came daily to give us food and do the cleaning work. We stayed there for three days and could escape after that woman forgot to lock the door. A cab drove us to the recruitment agency in Ajman".
The maid added: "We identified the defendant later among other suspects at the police station."
Two other Indonesian housemaids, aged 28 and 31, gave similar testimonies to the prosecutors.
A 28-year-old Emirati man, whose money was embezzled by the accused, said he had paid him Dh12,500 after he had called them and offered them a maid. "The defendant told us we could return her and get our money back in case she did not pass a one-month probation period. He claimed he worked for a recruitment office and got our number from them. The man came to our house in Abu Dhabi and showed us the maid's passport, her employment contract and some other papers," the witness said.
mary@khaleejtimes.com