Driver behind pepper spray car raid on accountant carrying Dh600,000, Dubai court hears

Company driver enlisted the help of four colleagues to rob the company accountant after he picked up a large sum of money from a bank on Sheikh Zayed Road, prosecutors say.

Four men attacked an accountant carrying more than Dh600,000, debilitating him with pepper spray before fleeing with the cash, a Dubai court heard on Thursday.

Prosecutors said that on May 15 the accountant and his colleague were getting into their company car, which had a driver that police said plotted with the four - who also worked at the same company - to steal the cash.

The defendants, two Pakistanis, aged 30 and 40, and three Bangladeshis, aged 28, 29 and 29, allegedly carried out the crime at 10.30am on the day of the incident near the bank where they lifted the cash on Sheikh Zayed Road.

“I received a call informing me of the incident in which a bag containing Dh679,665 was stolen from the accountant after his face was sprayed with pepper,” said a Pakistani employee, 36.

“I immediately headed to them and accompanied them to the police station and reported the incident.”

He added that police investigated and later told him that the crime was carried out by some of the company’s employees.

“Two of them worked as drivers, two others as construction workers and the fifth as a mechanic,” added the Pakistani employee.

The accountant told prosecutors that when they left the bank, the driver stopped the car suddenly, after which four men opened the car’s doors and attacked them then sprayed them with chili pepper powder before stealing the bag containing the money.

“It was the driver who called police at first, then I was informed by police that it was him who planned the whole thing,” said the accountant.

A police lieutenant said suspicions were raised about the driver after he gave misleading information, contradicting that provided by the accountant and his colleague.

“The accountant and other man said that the attackers were Asians - the driver said that they were Africans,” said the police officer, adding that further investigations proved the driver’s involvement, so he was arrested. It was not revealed how the other four were implicated.

“They all admitted [it] during questioning and said the driver was the mastermind behind the job,” said the officer.

The money was found in the men’s possessing when they were arrested the following day.

At Dubai Criminal Court, the five men denied a robbery charge.

The next hearing is on August 28.