Sex worker on Snapchat loses appeal

dubai — A man, who earned his living by soliciting sex with males on social media, has lost his appeal against a one-year jail term on a prostitution charge.

The Court of First Instance sentenced the 22-year-old Moroccan man, who is on a visit visa, to one year in jail and deportation in August. Prosecutors accused him of posting nude clips of himself on his Snapchat account and offering himself for paid sex.

In court, he admitted the charges

of inciting vice online and working in prostitution. The primary court ruling was appealed and it was upheld. The case was registered at Al Qusais police station.

A cybercrime lieutenant of the Dubai Police said he was on duty with a colleague when they monitored the defendant’s account on Snapchat. “The account that had a woman’s name showed morally inappropriate clips. It also seduced men and promoted prostitution and alcohol.”

The lieutenant then contacted the general directorate of criminal evidence and criminology to save the inappropriate clips in a CD.

A warrant was issued to arrest the accused. “At 10am on June 20, the defendant turned himself in at the police station. He confessed verbally that he used the Snapchat account to meet men for sex. He claimed he had arrived on a visit visa seeking a job but then made a living by working in prostitution.”

The man admitted to the officers that he had sex with several men across Dubai for Dh1,000 to Dh1,500.

The mobile phone he used was seized for examination at the Dubai Police crime laboratory.