Gang involved in theft of bank, hotel clients held

sharjah — The Sharjah Police, on Monday, busted an international gang that specialised in thefts targeting bank and hotel clients.

The gang would steal information of credits cards that belong to bank clients inside and outside the country and use the information to withdraw cash. The gang worked in coordination with employees of hotels and gold shops in the countries to get details of cards.

A top official at the CID said the police received information about the gang’s plans to carry out thefts in various European countries.

The police immediately formed a team and investigation resulted in the arrest of five suspects from various nationalities. The gang had contacted a manager of a popular hotel in the UAE and asked him to issue bills in names of European tourists and withdraw cash from their accounts from banks based in their countries. They offered the manager 40 per cent of the total cash they would get from the European banks.

The police set a trap in coordination with hotel manager to catch the culprits. The manager set up an appointment with the culprits who arrived on time with their list of international and local clients. While explaining to the hotel manager the theft operation, the police raided the place and arrested the culprits.

During interrogation, the gang confessed their plans to steal from European banks with the help of people based within the country.

Col Ibrahim Al Ajill, Director-General of Sharjah Police hailed the cooperation between the Sharjah CID and Federal CID department which resulted in busting the gang which used the country as a platform to carry out their international crimes.

He explained that the gang contacted many hotels and gold shops managers to involve them in the crime, but they all refused, and instead, and informed the police.