A corrupt former chairman of an Abu Dhabi government company who fraudulently sold hundreds of million of dirhams worth of shares to his own firm for an inflated price has been jailed for 15 years and ordered to pay back the cash.
Abu Dhabi Criminal Court ruled that the offender took advantage of his position of power in order to sell his personal shares - which he did not disclose he was in possession of - for a hefty profit to the company he headed.
A former executive director of the same company was handed a ten-year jail sentence for his role in the plot.
He was convicted of exploiting his job and facilitating the first defendant’s seizure of the company's money and will be deported once he has served his sentence.
The two men were ordered to jointly return Dh149 million euros (Dh618 million) to the government body and were each fined an additional Dh149 million euros.
The court found that the executive director had deceived the board of directors by advising that the major share purchase be approved on the basis they belonged to a bank, not his colleague.
He persuaded them that buying the shares would open up lucrative investment opportunities in the future.
The transfer of funds for the sale to the bank account of the conniving chairman was concealed in an effort to avoid detection.
