DUBAI // A marketing manager who embezzled nearly half a million dirhams from his company then fled the country pretending he had cancer was yesterday sentenced in his absence to a year in prison.
A?K, 44, from India, pocketed payments made by his employer Sahir Projects to other companies and then forged receipts to make it appear as if the payments had been made.
Prosecutors told the Criminal Court that between 2007 and 2010 he forged 15 such receipts and took Dh497,000. In 2010 he took extended sick leave before fleeing the country, telling his employer he had been diagnosed with cancer.
The human resources manager at Sahir Projects, S?N, 54, from India, said the missing payments were not discovered until after the marketing manager had left.
“When we contacted one of the companies requesting they deliver an advertisement which we thought we’d paid for, we were stunned to find out that there was no advertisement at all,” he said.
He said the defendant had worked for the company since 2004 and that he hired an Indian woman, P?G, 41, as a consultant. She helped him to embezzle.
The defendant, who remains at large, was convicted of embezzlement, forgery and use of forged documents. P??G was convicted of aiding and abetting and also sentenced to a year in prison.
salamir@thenational.ae