Man denies stealing phones from shops

abu dhabi — An Emirati youth is accused of stealing expensive mobile phones from busy shops in the Capital after pretending to be a buyer.

Prosecutors told the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court that the man his 20s went to different shops and stole expensive phones. He was arrested after three mobile phone shops in Abu Dhabi complained about the thefts.

Shop owners told the police that the accused would enter a shop and ask for expensive phones, saying he wanted to buy a few pieces. The salesman would then show him various phones to check and select what he wanted. “And when the salesman was busy attending to other customers, the man would hide some of the phones in a hand bag,” said a prosecutor.

“He was only returning lesser pieces to the salesman saying that he couldn’t find the one he wanted.” Shop workers sometimes asked him about the missing pieces, but he would tell them that he had already handed them back to them. Most of the times, the shop owners noticed that some pieces of expensive phones were missing, only after the accused left the shop.

The police tracked the stolen phones using the serial numbers provided to them by the shop owners and found out that after stealing the phones, the Emirati was selling them to shops located in the outskirts of the city.

The man was using an Emirates ID that belonged to another person to sell the phones to these shops. The accused denied the charge of theft when he appeared in court. The trial was adjourned until March. ismail@khaleejtimes.com