Jail time for men who kidnapped tourist and stole her passport, Dubai court rules



DUBAI // Two Russians kidnapped a Ukrainian tourist after offering her a lift home before assaulting her and stealing her passport.

The men, aged 30 and 34, were convicted of kidnap, physical assault and robbery by Dubai Criminal Court and jailed for two years each.

On January 13 this year one of the men approached the woman in Bur Dubai and asked if she knew any good shops to buy clothes for his wife.

“He figured I was Ukrainian and started chatting in Russian and told me he was also a tourist,” said the woman, adding that as she was about to leave he asked her where she was staying and offered her a ride home.

“He was very nice and being from Russia I felt safe and got into his car but he had a friend in the car,” said the victim.

When they drove past Al Rafaa where she was staying the woman told the driver to stop the car. He ignored her and carried on until they reached an area in Ajman, where one of the men slapped her and tried to strangle her with her hair.

The men then took her bag which contained her passport and demanded she pay them Dh5,000.

“They gave me a piece of paper with an email address written on it and said that I should contact them regarding payment to get my passport back,” said the woman, who was then thrown out of the car.

She walked to the nearest road and flagged down a car. The Emirati driver took her home after she explained what had happened, after which she called police.

An Emirati policeman said the men were arrested at their home in Ajman. “We found several passports from unknown women with them,” said the officer.

Both men denied all of the charges against them in court in April. However, they were found guilty and will be deported after serving their jail terms.

salamir@thenational.ae

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Match info

Uefa Champions League Group B

Barcelona v Tottenham Hotspur, midnight

If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.

When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.

How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”