4 convicted in ransom case jailed for 3 years
DUBAI: The Dubai Criminal Court jailed a gang of two Asians and two Eastern Europeans for 3 years, to be followed by deportation ater serving their sentences. The court also fined them jointly Dhs70,000, on charges of kidnapping a nightclub owner and an employee, detaining them inside a villa, and trying to obtain a ransom from the victims’ family in their home country.
The details of the case date back to January 2022, when the owner of a club in the Dubai Investment Park filed a report complaining that he had been kidnapped by anonymous persons, noting that two people entered his workplace wearing Emirati uniforms and claimed to be security personnel. He added that one of them started to ask about the nature of the place’s activity and its commercial licence, and during that time, two Asians entered the place and participated with the two others in searching it. Then they reportedly seized Dhs70,000, tied him and his colleague, forced them into a vehicle, and took them to a villa in another emirate, where they beat and tortured them, filmed the incident, and sent the video clips to their family to obtain a ransom of $800,000, according to the second victim.
The victim added that her family told the gangsters that they did not have that amount, but ater they insisted on obtaining the ransom, the victim’s father sent the equivalent of Dhs1,300.
A policeman reported in the interrogations that an investigation team identified the suspects who were arrested in possession of Dhs33,000, which they admited was part of the amount stolen from the club.
The second suspect confessed that he drove the Asian’s car to another emirate where the two victims were detained, denying his participation in the assault on the two victims.
He also confessed that the two Asian suspects asked the victim’s family for $800,000, but their families told them that they did not have that amount, so the suspects decided ater they lost hope to obtain the ransom, to release the two victims who they returned to Dubai and let tied up near the international city.