Bank manager's 5-year jail sentence upheld for Dh3.4m theft

The Dubai Court of Appeal has upheld a 5-year jail sentence against a bank customer service manager who stole Dh3.4m from a client.

DUBAI // A bank customer service manager who was supposed to help people manage their accounts instead helped himself to more than Dh3million from one client.

The Dubai Court of Appeal today upheld a five-year jail sentence against RM, 33, of Egypt, who had been convicted of forging documents and using them to steal Dh3.4m from one customer.

RM denied all charges when he appeared before the Dubai Court of First Instance last October.

His compatriot, a 32-year-old woman, was also charged with possessing Dh600,000 of the stolen money after the defendant wired it from the victim's account to hers. However, she was acquitted by the lower court, and the appeal court upheld her acquittal.

In November 2010, the bank where RM worked received a complaint from a Syrian client, according to prosecution records.

"A complaint was lodged by a man claiming money was stolen from his sister's account," an official at the bank told prosecutors.

The man confirmed to the bank that his sister had not made any transactions and that her signatures on the transaction documents were forged, prosecutors said. An internal investigation at the bank revealed that RM had made four transactions from the victim's two accounts.

"We contacted him when he was in Egypt and he admitted the robbery, then immediately transferred Dh500,000 to the bank", a Jordanian bank official told prosecutors during investigations.

Prosecutors said that RM changed the PO box number of the account to prevent the 52-year-old victim from getting banking statements and discovering the illegal transactions.

During interrogations, RM confessed to forging the signatures, but claimed he had called the bank client and had received her permission, a claim the victim denied.

RM will be deported after completing his prison term.