Thief drugged market worker with 'perfume'

Thief who drugged people before stealing from them is sentenced to six months in jail.

DUBAI // A thief who drugged a market worker with a mysterious 'perfume' before stealing Dh700 from him was today sentenced to six months in jail.

The Dubai Criminal Court heard that EK, a 50-year-old Pakistani on a visit visa, met his compatriot SH, a 30-year-old porter, at the Vegetable and Fruit market in Al Aweer in October last year.

He asked the porter for a drink of water and stopped to chat with him and a third man.

When the third man left, he offered the porter a bottle of red-coloured liquid and told him to sniff it. "He told me it was perfume," said the porter.

However, soon after sniffing the bottle the porter began to feel dizzy and then lost consciousness. He woke 15 minutes later to find his wallet on the floor, empty.

The porter and some of his fellow workers then searched for the man and found him trying to leave the market in a taxi. The taxi driver refused to pick him up and the market workers then chased him until he fell into a hole in the street.

The market workers said that he then began to inflict injuries on himself that he tried to blame on them.

"There were stones inside the hole, he picked up one and started hitting himself on the head then said we did it," one of the workers testified.

EK admitted charges of forceful robbery. Court records did not make clear what substance the perfume bottle contained.