DUBAI // A gang of six jailed for three years each for forging visit visas to European countries in return for cash must serve out their prison terms, the Dubai Court of Appeal has ruled.
One of the six, a 33-year-old spare parts salesman from Afghanistan, offered his services through middlemen to compatriots in his home country and people in India.
His customers would travel to Dubai using valid passports and visas. They would be provided with accommodation until he made the fake visas.
The defendant was arrested in November 2015 after police were tipped off. He confessed to officers that he made forgeries with the help of five other people in the UAE and another who lived in Austria.
The man denied forging visas to Germany, Turkey, Austria and also South Korea. He was found with forged British and Afghan passports. A 37-year-old Pakistani denied forging two letters addressed to the Turkish embassy in an attempt to get visas.
Four other men, two Pakistanis, an Indian and a Bahraini, aged between 35 and 49, denied aiding and abetting.
However, all six were convicted and will spend three years in jail each to be followed by deportation after the Dubai Court of Appeal upheld their sentences.
salamir@thenational.ae
