Seven smuggled forged 'eye scan pass' seals

Seven Uzbeks, including a woman, allegedly smuggled 60 forged eye scan seals into the UAE through Abu Dhabi and Sharjah airports and used them, the Dubai Criminal Court heard.

Captain Walid Ahmad testified that following a tip off about ‘JK’ possessing forged eye scan pass seals, he arranged with the informer to arrest the suspect red handed.

“The informer arranged with JK to stamp two visas with eye scan pass seals and on February 20, 2012, the accused was arrested red handed. We also confiscated in his car some forged stamps. He confessed to getting the stamps from MJA who in turn had got them from MYY,” he testified.

Searching his two flats in Al Nahda area, police confiscated ten other eye scan pass seals in addition to tools and moulds used for forging seals, tourist visas and passports. The accused claimed that he got those seals from MYY following the latter’s arrest by Sharjah Police.

Investigating the crime, police also arrested ZT, AA and the woman ST. ST confessed that following the arrest of JK, MJA, ZT and her brother RK by state security in Dubai, her brother called her from the Central Jail, asking her to go to one of the two apartments and to collect seals hidden in a bag behind the refrigerator.

ST admitted to collecting the seals and putting them in another bag. She was seen by the witness SM, 51-year- old compatriot visitor, who testified that ST asked her to keep the closed bag with her for two days.

“I thought the bag contained her personal belongings. I did not know that it contained forged official seals,” she told investigators.

ST confessed that her brother used the seals and stamped some visas against money. She told investigators that her brother had got 50 forged stamps from a Russian woman called Tanya who had smuggled them into the country.

Criminal Evidences reported that all the seals were forged and that some of them had been used as they had been contaminated with ink.

The prosecution accused RKA, 30, businessman, of smuggling 60 forged seals into the UAE. The remaining six, identified as  JK, 29, MJA, 26, driver, ZT, 36, visitor, AA, 33, jobless and MYY, 32 jobless besides the woman ST, 35, jobless, are accused of possessing, hiding and using forged seals.

The court adjourned the case until June 2.
 

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