DUBAI // A man was arrested after trying to board a flight from Dubai to Rio de Janeiro with the wrong passport, the Dubai Criminal Court was told.
M M, 28, was arrested on October 21 last year after he handed over his original Pakistani passport to security at the boarding gate instead of a forged Moroccan passport with a fake Brazilian visa.
Prosecutors said M M confessed to buying the forged passport and visa in order to get to Brazil to find work. He said he met a man at a travel company in Pakistan who offered to provide him with the forgery in return for 700,000 Pakistani Rupees.
M M was told the passport would be handed to him at Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport.
However, when he was boarding M M mistakenly handed over his Pakistani passport, which did not have a visa for Brazil. He was then taken to the airport’s passport control officers and questioned.
Prosecutors said M M confessed to having a forged passport.
“The passport had fake entry and exit stamps into and out of Dubai as well, and when we asked him how he got it he said a man gave it to him at the airport,” testified passport control officer R M.
M M was charged with forging an official document, to which he confessed.
He awaits a verdict on February 8.
salamir@thenational.ae
