DUBAI // Conmen left Indian couple Tanura Sunny and Vihil Thomas hundreds of thousands of dirhams out of pocket and ruined their family business.
Ms Sunny says Mr Thomas, 37, was the owner of a successful cargo shipping company when he was hit by criminals in 2009 as he returned from the bank after making a large cash withdrawal.
“He was the owner of a shipping company and he was at the bank,” says Ms Sunny, 36, who was born in the UAE.
“He withdraw the money because we had three vessels at the time and for that we needed to pay a lot of things with cash.
“We needed to pay for supplies. We need to carry cash.”
Mr Thomas withdrew Dh400,000 from the bank and was on his way back to his office when criminals blocked his car and pretended to be from the police, says Ms Sunny.
“It was a big amount he was carrying back to the office. Because the amount was big he asked my brother to join him.
“Together they were in the car and while they were on the way back to the office they were blocked by another car.
“Five people were in a BMW. They blocked them. They showed a police ID and they said they wanted to check the source of the money.
“They took a file and asked them to come to the police station.”
Having handed over the cash, Mr Thomas went to the police station that he had been told to attend.
“There they said nobody knew about such an incident,” says Ms Sunny.
Luckily, Mr Thomas and his brother-in-law, being avid car enthusiasts, had made a detailed note of the car.
It was a limited-edition BMW of which there were only a handful in the UAE.
“Using those details the police caught them the same day – all of them – and they were punished,” says Ms Sunny.
She says the police were responsive and vigilant in the case.
Unfortunately though, they were only able to retrieve Dh142,000.
Ms Sunny says she and her husband still are awaiting to get hold of the Dh142,000 that has been tied up in legal red tape.
They were forced to close their business because of a lack of funds and a disrupted cash flow, she says.
“This happened during the recession time in Dubai,” says Ms Sunny, a computer engineer.
“That was major. We had to sell our vessels. Everything was stuck during the recession.
“When we did not have that solid cash then there was no new business.
“We lost everything. All of our ships. It was a total mess.”
newsdesk@thenational.ae
