Authorities in the United Arab Emirates have rounded up nine suspects who have been found guilty of laundering funds collected from “theft and fraud operations,” according to a report from official UAE state media WAM.
The UAE Public Prosecution reportedly ordered the defendants to appear in court after the Sharjah Public Prosecution found them targeting workers through an elaborate scheme.
In a statement issued on Wednesday by the Public Prosecution, it said that the “gang of nine suspects” used to issue SIM cards, open bank accounts and obtain ATM cards all under workers’ names.
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The group reportedly ran and managed these accounts through online banking applications, defrauding victims by calling them feigning the identities of bank employees who wanted to update their data or offer the chance to win a monetary prize.
The ruse allowed the nine members to obtain the necessary information, transfer money to other bank accounts they had operated for this purpose, withdraw cash, and then deposit it into accounts belonging to them abroad.
Investigations also revealed that the group of nine forged bank seals.
The Public Prosecution declared in the original statement carried by WAM that it has requested the court to apply the maximum penalty against the accused, in accordance with the provisions of the Federal Decree No. 20 of 2018 on Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism.
This law stipulates that a temporary imprisonment and a fine of no less than AED 300,000 ($81,600) and no more than AED 10,000,000 ($2.7 million) be charged to the perpetrators of the crime.
The Public Prosecution confirmed in the statement that necessary legal actions have been taken against the culprits and urged the public to be “cautious and not to cooperate or respond to fraudsters.”
According to a Bloomberg report, the UAE is at “increased risk of being placed on a global watchdog’s list of countries” subject to more oversight for shortcomings in combating money laundering and terrorist financing, even after a recent government push to stamp out illicit transactions.
The Central Bank of UAE established a dedicated department in August 2020 to handle all Anti-Money Laundering and Combatting the Financing of Terrorism matters (AML/CFT), which the Banking Supervision Department handled previously.
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