Dubai car showroom staff steal cars worth Dh2.8 million

Dubai : Three staff of a showroom of used expensive cars allegedly stole more than 13 cars by forging sale documents, a court heard on Thursday.

The three Sri Lankans, including a salesman, 36, and two drivers 42 and 49, all at large, are believed to have applied and were issued registration, ownership transfer and export certificates of the cars at the licensing department of the Roads and Transport Authority in Al Barsha, by fraudulent means.

The three also allegedly used forged sale documents. They falsely claimed that those documents were issued by the showroom where they worked.

The trio is believed to have fled the UAE together in one flight right after stealing and selling most of the cars and exporting the few remaining on May 22, 2015, one day after the incident.

All the three are being charged in absentia in the Court of First Instance with forgery and use of forged documents and fraud. The salesman is being accused also of breach of trust for allegedly abusing a power of attorney given to him by the showroom owners. The two others are accused of criminal complicity.

One of the showroom's owners, a Kazakh resident, 43, said that he and his business partner discovered the robbery on May 22, 2015.

"The thieves took all the cars which are worth Dh 2,795,000. The three defendants did not report to work on that day and they were unreachable on their mobile phones. So I informed the police."

The owner added that by checking the CCTV cameras of the previous day they saw all the three driving the cars out of the showroom with the help of several other men.

An employee at the licensing department said that one of the defendants came to the department. "He inquired about the procedures to sell a number of cars belonging to the showroom where he worked. He wanted the sale to be express. I told him that the express service is available and there was an extra-charge of Dh150 for every application".

The employee added that the buyer (an Arab) who had come with the defendant to the department came again the following day.

"He told me that the police seized some of the cars he bought. He asked whether there was anything wrong in the ownership transfer of the cars."

A Sri Lankan firefighter, 32, said that he received a WhatsApp message about a big discount made by a showroom on more than 10 used cars and that the discount was about 50 per cent. He forwarded the message to another man (the one who bought the cars) while both were in the gym. "Later, when the buyer paid the defendant Dh980,000, the driver gave him a receipt. I asked him (the defendant) about the reason he looked scared and tense and he said because the amount was large."

The stolen cars' prices start from Dh140,000 up to Dh385,000, and are 2013 and 2014 models.