Dubai airport workers charged with stealing mobile phones
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Aviation workers appeared in court facing charges of stealing 1,030 mobile phones worth around Dh260,000 belonging to passengers at Dubai airport.
The Pakistani suspects, who are ground staff employees at Dubai International Airport, pleaded not guilty and denied their theft charges, in two separate cases, before the Dubai Court of First Instance.
In the first case, prosecutors charged 33-year-old F.R., 30-year-old J.A. and 24-year-old F.D. with robbing 550 mobile phones worth around Dh64,000 which belonged to a salesman. A fourth Pakistani suspect, 27-year-old F.A. (who is at large) was also charged with theft.
In the second case, the Public Prosecution charged F.R. and J.A. with stealing 480 mobile phones worth around Dh200,000 which belonged to a Nigerian female visitor.
Judge Hamad Abdul Latif Abdul Jawad presided over the hearing. The Pakistani salesman claimed to prosecutors that the incident happened at the check-in counter.
"F.R. asked me to open one of [the] handbags because he claimed I had overweight [baggage] & he said they will help me before he handed me my boarding pass and cargo ticket for the handbag," alleged the salesman.
An Emirati police sergeant, who questioned the suspects, testified that F.R. masterminded the whole theft. "F.R. used to order the escapee [F.A.] to replace passengers' handbag tags and issue tags carrying J.A.'s name so he could walk away with the handbags. F.D. assisted them in selling the stolen items outside the country," claimed the sergeant.
An Emirati first corporal claimed in his statement: "We discovered that the suspects travelled on the same day when the Nigerian woman's handbag got stolen& the scanner also exposed that the suspects' bag contained mobile phones".
The trial reconvenes in October.