A Dubai Court has sentenced a real estate company owner to three months in jail and fined him AED 673,000 for cheating investors in UAE through fake property deals.
The businessman had established several offices of his company in different emirates of the UAE and conducted advertisement campaigns on social media for a massive residential project outside the UAE and already sold the proposed property units to more than 600 investors, before the scam came to light, according to local media reports.
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The Dubai Public Prosecution had reportedly charged the owner and his advertisement manager with fraud and the Dubai Court of Appeals later overturned the verdict and cleared the manager of the charges, while holding the owner responsible for the fraud.
It was found that the real estate company neither had a licence to build property units outside the country, nor did it have a licence from Dubai Real Estate Regulatory Agency to collect monthly instalments from clients in the UAE.
A victim claimed that he had signed a contract to buy a property unit for $176,400 (AED 648,799) and paid nearly AED 309,000 and was promised that the apartment would be ready after three months.
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However, a letter from the authority in the country concerned stated that the project had not been granted permission for construction while an official in Dubai testified that many clients lodged complaints and the company was told not to collect instalments from the public.
The company was also slapped with a fine of AED 50,000.
Lawyer Bader Khamis, who represents the manager in this litigation, appealed the verdict citing lack of evidence and claimed that the defendant was just an employee and did not collect money from the victims.
