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28 March 2024

Raffle greed uncovers gang of duty free robbers

Three would enter a duty free and distract salesmen to steal jewellery. (FILE)

Published
By Eman Al Baik

Greed to win a raffle draw was the undoing of a gang of thieves who stole jewellery from duty free shops at the airports in the region.

The raffle ticket ‘drop’ by HB, Armenian who dressed and behaved like a woman, helped Dubai Police identify him and later his two accomplices.

The thieves had entered a duty free shop at the airport in Dubai and pretended not to know each other.

The salesmen showed each a number of jewellery pieces.

Each managed to steal some of the pieces when the other two were distracting his attention.

The passengers then left the Dubai Airport to another Arab country with their booty as transit passengers too, according to police transfer sheet.

The three were careful not to leave a trace their entry to any country they targeted to commit thefts at the duty free.

However, they forgot that one of them actually registered his name in the raffle coupon.

Police received a complaint from a jewellery shop at the Airport’s Duty Free about the missing jewelleries worth about Dh300,000 value.

Checking the recordings of the video cameras at the Duty Free, the police suspected three passengers, two were women and the third looked like a man, who dressed and behaved like a woman.

The cameras also showed that the three passengers bought electronics from one of the shops and that one of the suspects – the man who dressed and walked, like a woman, had filled a coupon using his name and nationality and dropped it in the raffle draw box.

Police checked the names in all coupons and found that only HB was a visitor whereas the rest were UAE residents.

From the passenger manifests of that day, police identified HB and the other two Armenian women as suspects of the theft.

In coordination with the Armenian travel agency, police tracked HB and his accomplices returning to Dubai on transit visas.

On Friday August 13, the three arrived at Dubai International Airport and were put under police surveillance.

The three visited a number of jewellery shops at the Duty Free but seemed not to steal any piece as there was not much passenger traffic that day.

The three were arrested while attempting to catch a plane to another Gulf airport.

The three have admitted the theft of jewellery worth Dh300,000 from a shop at the Duty Free at Dubai International Airport.

They also confessed to committing other thefts at other regional airports they visited as transit passenger by following the same modus operandi.

The Dubai Public Prosecution is investigating the case and is yet to refer it to the Dubai Courts. It sought court permission for extension of detention.

It was astonishing for people at the Dubai Courts on Thursday to see a man with a long hair dressed and behaving like a woman.

The Armenian man was sitting in handscuffs with another suspect among a group of others who were brought to the court by the prosecution from their detention police stations.

“As the prosecution did not finish investigations within 15 days,” explained a court employee when asked by Emirates 24|7 about the woman-like-man and his case.

Later, a policeman approached the suspects who were sitting on chairs outside a judge’s office and removed the cuffs from their hands.

With his free hands, HB used feminine gestures including adjusting his appearance every now and then, playing with his fingers and nails which were neatly pared and coloured bright pink.

He was wearing black tight pants, blouse and jacket and in his foot he put on female slipper with toes coloured blue.

Although he had the shave face of a man, his eyebrows were cared for and his long hair gave him a female appearance.

“He is not yet convicted and we do not intervene how suspects’ look as we respect their personal freedom,” said a policeman when asked by Emirates24|7 whether such an abnormal situation of a man dressed like a woman is allowed to continue in detention.