Three men jailed in Dubai for stealing bulldozers

The men forged documents to evade customs and tried to sell the bulldozers worth Dh2.5 million in Oman.

Salam Al Amir

DUBAI // Three men who stole two bulldozers worth Dh2.5 million have each been jailed for two years.

Pakistanis A H, 27, and S A, 24, and Indian M A, 32, rented the vehicles from a contractor and agreed to pay him Dh34,000 a month.

But they took the bulldozers to Oman using forged documents and tried to sell them.

Emirati A A, 47, leased the bulldozers to the men on March 20 last year and a man called “Yasser” picked them up.

“The deal was that the vehicles be rented along with their drivers,” he said.

The drivers went with the man, but shortly after leaving the office they called the owner and told him he and another man had taken the vehicles.

Six days later, the owner heard about bulldozers for sale in Oman and went to the police.

“They carried the same vehicle identification numbers and I knew then that they must have been sent to Oman using forged shipping documents,” he said.

Police lieutenant M H, 27, said one of the three defendants was arrested on May 4 last year at Dubai Customs, when he submitted forged documents in a case unrelated to the bulldozers. They suspected his involvement in the theft of the vehicles and he led them to the other two accused.

Laptops were taken from their homes and they contained evidence of how they forged the vehicles’ documents. A large amount of cash and fake stamps were also found.

Police said the trio confessed during investigations but they denied charges of forgery and embezzlement at Dubai Criminal Court on Thursday.

They will be deported after completing their jail terms.