Man buys cars with bogus cheques

dubai — The Dubai Police have arrested an Asian who stole cars worth Dh19 million, after receiving 55 complaints from the victims in a short period of time.

The suspect deliberately committed his crimes on the weekends, and wrote his victims cheques under different names.

Major-General Khalil Ibrahim Al Mansouri, assistant commander of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the Dubai Police, said that after laying out a master plan to nab the suspect, a special team managed to arrest him despite his “covert and careful planning in executing the crime” and in dealing with the victims.

Colonel Saeed Al Qamzi, deputy director of the Wanted department of the Dubai Police’s General Investigation and CID wing, said that after several reports were received about repeated bounced checks, they checked the complainants’ statements and deduced that it was the same person who was cheating them.

The suspect would contact his victims online and arrange to meet them only on Thursdays to buy their cars, after banks were closed for the day.

He would pretend to be a businessman, and write them a cheque in their presence, after offering to buy their cars for the quoted price, without bargaining and thus making them believe they had clinched a successful deal.

Col al Qamzi pointed out that he cleverly chose the end of the week so his victims could not cash the cheque immediately. He would sign the papers of sale and take the car, after which the seller could only file a bounced check complaint, not a fraud. In the interim period, the accused would have enough time to sell the car to another person.

However, the Dubai Police team used the criminal’s own strategy against him, by setting a trap online where they pretended to have a vehicle for sale. The accused turned up for the meeting, and after the transactions were made, he was duly arrested by the police personnel and transferred to the Public Prosecution to complete the investigation.