A fraudster who tricked an unsuspecting investor into spending tens of thousands of dirhams on a non-existent company has been handed a one-year jail sentence.
The Egyptian conman, 36, forged a trade licence for a fictitious petrol company, attributing the document to Dubai's department of economic development.
He then courted the Emirati backer, 49, by offering him a share of the proceeds of the sale of the company - as long as he stumped up the money required to renew the trading license.
The defendant told the victim that he was one of the owners of the company and was eager to sell.
“He said that he and the partners agreed to sell the company but were incapable financially to pay for its license renewal and, if I paid for it, I would get a good profit once the company was sold,” said the victim.
The man said he paid the bogus businessman Dh370,000 to fund the licence renewal.
When the accused stop taking his calls as he sought answers over when the company would be sold, he alerted police.
The offender was arrested and the faked licence was found on his laptop.
He confessed to the crime, but said he only took Dh120,000 from the would-be investor.
He was convicted of forgery, use of forged documents and fraudulently obtaining Dh120,000 at Dubai Criminal Court on Thursday.
The trickster will be deported once he has served his prison term.
How to get exposure to gold
Although you can buy gold easily on the Dubai markets, the problem with buying physical bars, coins or jewellery is that you then have storage, security and insurance issues.
A far easier option is to invest in a low-cost exchange traded fund (ETF) that invests in the precious metal instead, for example, ETFS Physical Gold (PHAU) and iShares Physical Gold (SGLN) both track physical gold. The VanEck Vectors Gold Miners ETF invests directly in mining companies.
Alternatively, BlackRock Gold & General seeks to achieve long-term capital growth primarily through an actively managed portfolio of gold mining, commodity and precious-metal related shares. Its largest portfolio holdings include gold miners Newcrest Mining, Barrick Gold Corp, Agnico Eagle Mines and the NewMont Goldcorp.
Brave investors could take on the added risk of buying individual gold mining stocks, many of which have performed wonderfully well lately.
London-listed Centamin is up more than 70 per cent in just three months, although in a sign of its volatility, it is down 5 per cent on two years ago. Trans-Siberian Gold, listed on London's alternative investment market (AIM) for small stocks, has seen its share price almost quadruple from 34p to 124p over the same period, but do not assume this kind of runaway growth can continue for long
However, buying individual equities like these is highly risky, as their share prices can crash just as quickly, which isn't what what you want from a supposedly safe haven.
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