Property developer's staff offered Dh500,000 bribe for cancelling fines

An Iranian company executive allegedly offered Dh500,000 as bribe to an employee of a property developer in return for cancelling fines for delayed payment of instalments, the Dubai Criminal Court heard.

WN, 40, Colombian, sales executive at a property development company, testified that last May he had meeting, together with his senior, with a representative of real estate investors who had failed to pay their instalments on time.

“The investors failed to pay a total of Dh11.5 million in installments and the accumulated fines for delay in payments. My senior informed the representative that the investors will be sued.

“A few days later, I received a call from the representative asking me for a meeting outside the company. I refused and asked him to come to the office. He came to the office and asked me to waive the fines for three land investments and offered Dh200,000 as  bribe.

“I told him that this is illegal but I pretended to be interested, saying I will think about his offer and reply him later. I informed the legal affairs department who asked me to go ahead with his offer to arrest him red handed. During a month of negotiations, the representative agreed to raise the bribe to Dh500,000.

“We met in a hotel where he handed me over Dh400,000 in a bag and I handed him documents  about waiver of Dh3.7 million in fines. He said he will give the remaining Dh100,000 after  checking the authenticity of the documents with the company. Then I gave the agreed upon signal to the police who were observing the scene,” testified the sales executive.

The 32-year-old accused WM  told investigators that he was assigned by a company to solve the problems of the developer and to obtain three land ownership certificates. The buyers of the three plots of land claimed that he had paid the installments on time and that the payments were not registered in the developer’s record. A court case in this regard had been heard in 2009 and was still pending.

“I was asked to settle the issue with the developer before the date of the Court hearing. I told the investors that Dh1 million is needed to clear the issue and got approval from them to proceed with the bribe,” WM told investigators.

The Court will reconvene on December 18.
 

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