Duo duped with Dh3.5M bogus project

dubai — A businessman stood trial at a Dubai court after he allegedly duped, with convicted accomplices, two investors of $950,000 (Dh3.5 million) by offering them a bogus lucrative business project. He later tricked the duo into believing that they had magical powers and could have a spell, “cast on the victims”, removed.

The 47-year-old Chad national faced charges of fraud and possession of fake banknotes for circulation, at the Court of First Instance.

Prosecutors accused him of a $950,000 fraud and possession of fake $349,000 banknotes and have requested the court to inflict the stiffest legal penalty possible on him. The incident was reported on November 15, 2015, at Al Muraqqabat police station, but the case began about two years prior to that.

During the public prosecution investigation, one of the victims, a 44-year-old Algerian, recounted how he first met one of the convicts and they agreed to start a meat import business between Sudan and Algeria. “I met him later at his place in Ajman and paid him $ 30,000 to finalise the procedure of establishing the company. He gave me many dollar bills and told me to check them at a money exchange office. After I found them to be real, I asked to expand our partnership and paid him $150,000.”

The complainant told the prosecution investigator that he was later lured into paying $200,000 after the convict convinced him “he was under an evil spell and he needed to pay cash to have it treated’’.

The convict then visited the victim at the latter’s place and “treated him with perfume, herbs and incense”. “I was fooled into paying more amounts on different occasions on the pretext that the cure would take long,” the victim recalled.

The defendant then told the victim his friend would continue the treatment. “The accused asked me to pay $130,000 at his place in Al Rigga,” the victim said.

The trial of the defendant, who is in detention, continues on February 24.