Man Convicted for Trying to Swindle Money he Claimed was a Debt Owed by a Deceased Father

The Abu Dhabi Misdemeanours Court convicted a person for attempting to swindle a sum of money by posing as a merchant owing money to the victim’s deceased father, demanding that it be paid. However, the attempt failed and the accused was arrested.

Regarding the facts of the case, as revealed by the investigations of Abu Dhabi Public Prosecution, is that the accused contacted the victim via WhatsApp, after finding his phone number on an obituary page on social media where the victim had posted his family’s phone numbers to receive condolences following the death of his father. The accused, posing as a merchant, contacted him to ask him to transfer an amount of 900 dirhams to his bank account, claiming that the deceased father had bought goods of this value from him. When the victim asked him to send his commercial license or his ID card and asked to contact him, the offender wrote that he was mute and could not speak. Suspecting a scheme to defraud, the victim reported the matter to the competent authorities.

After investigation and examination of the phone, the report of the Centre of Forensic and Digital Sciences of the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department proved that the phone used in the criminal attempt belonged to the accused and that the social media account was linked to his phone number, in addition to the fact that the file and the photos contained in the device matched the WhatsApp conversations. As a result, the Public Prosecution referred the accused before the competent court, which sentenced him to two months’ imprisonment with deletion of all data, confiscation of the phone and permanent closure of his WhatsApp account.

In this context, the Abu Dhabi Public Prosecution called on the members of society to be vigilant and to make sure of the information they receive from unknown persons before responding to it, and not letting themselves be fooled by the scammers who use social media to commit their crimes.