A man has been sentenced to three years in prison after buying a Dh7.5 million villa using money he stole from his employers.
The Canadian general manager, who is at large, was accused of abusing his position at an engineering company, partly owned by Dubai government, for personal gain.
Court records showed he was responsible for authorising unlimited financial purchases and fraudulently added a note allowing him to buy the villa on company money to a document from a board of directors meeting in 2016.
The incident was revealed during a financial audit carried out by Dubai government’s Financial Audit Authority, which showed he had committed several crimes between May 2016 and April 2017.
These included increasing his educational allowance from Dh200,000 to Dh300,000 a year, using the company cars for personal errands and issuing cheques of Dh183,000 to an Egyptian engineering consultant, 59, who did not provide services to the company.
"When questioned about the villa purchase, he said he obtained verbal approval from the chairman," a senior auditor from the authority said.
The chairman denied giving any such approval to the manager, whose services were terminated after he transferred ownership of the villa to the company.
At Dubai Criminal Court last September, he was charged with abusing his position, illegally obtaining money from his company and damaging the company's interests.
On Monday, he was convicted in his absence and sentenced to three years in prison to be followed by deportation. He was also fined Dh7.9m.
The Egyptian engineering consultant was charged with criminal abetting but was acquitted by the court.
