Dubai con artist who tricked tenants out of Dh2m has sentence reduced

A fake estate agent who rented out a flat that was not his has sentence reduced from three years in prison to six months by the Appeals Court.

DUBAI // A fake estate agent who made Dh2 million by letting out apartments without their owners' knowledge today had his sentence reduced from three years in jail to six months by the Appeals Court.

However, the court upheld the deportation order against the Pakistani AS, who tricked several people into renting the apartments by advertising on the internet and convincing would-be tenants by showing them forged ownership documents.

The man was caught after renting one such flat in Jebel Ali to a 63-year-old Jordanian teacher, HS, for more than Dh40,000 in March 2011.

"He showed me two apartments and claimed he was an agent for a property company," said the teacher. Two days later the conman handed him the property's keys, a contract and a copy of the ownership certificate and the teacher gave him the cheques for the year's rent.

A month later another a representative of the real owner visited the teacher and told him the documents he had been given were forged. The teacher was subsequently evicted in July 2011 after an order from the rental dispute committee.

"I suffered for months and I lost the rental fees for two months and I was psychologically exhausted." said the teacher.