DUBAI // A man claimed he was a member of Dubai’s ruling family in order to trick a woman he met on BlackBerry messenger in to giving him gold jewellery, a court was told.
Prosecutors said that Emirati S A allegedly used a forged passport in order to convince Iranian F A, 23, that he was Sheikh Butti Bin Suhail Al Maktoum in August 2011.
“I met the defendant on BlackBerry chat four years ago and we started chatting with each other,” said F A. “One time he told me that he was Sheikh Butti Bin Suhail Al Maktoum and that he owned jewellery stores.”
F A told prosecutors that S A asked to check her jewellery to see if was real gold or not.
“I gave him two sets of jewellery, each containing a pair of earrings, necklace, a bracelet and a ring. The items were given to S A by the security guard at my building when I saw his picture and made sure that he was from the ruling family,” F A said.
The Iranian told prosecutors that when she asked S A to return the jewellery he kept stalling, so she reported him to police.
Jewellery salesman A G, 58, told prosecutors that he knew S A because he lived near his store in Abu Dhabi.
“S A came to me and asked if I would purchase two sets of 21 karat gold jewellery that he claimed belonged to his wife,” said the Indian.
Store owner T A, from Yemen, told prosecutors that he bought the jewellery from S A for Dh20,250.
“That day we melted one of the sets. Later that day we received a call asking about the jewellery and the caller told us that the sister of S A will come to the store.”
SA’s sister, F, came to the store two days later and gave T A Dh15,700 for the remaining jewellery set.
“Police came and asked us about the purchase receipts for the jewellery, but we told them we didn’t make them because we knew the defendant,” said T A.
At Dubai Criminal Court, S A entered a plea of not guilty to a charge of using forged passport and embezzling jewellery.
Forensic teams found a picture of the forged passport on S A’s BlackBerry, however they couldn’t not retrieve any text messages or chats because they didn’t have the pass code.
The next hearing is set for July 14.
tzriqat@thenational.ae