Vehicle testing centre staff forged documents of three cars worth Dh92,000

A Yemeni employee at a vehicle testing centre allegedly forged ownership certificates and agreed with a car dealer to export the cars abroad.

EM, 23, who worked at Al Wasl Testing Centre, admitted before the court of forging the documents of a Chevrolet, 2007 model, Nissan 2008 model and Jaguar 2008 model in December 2012.The cars were worth a total of Dh92,000.

He admitted to transferring the ownership of the cars to a Syrian car dealer TK, 30, and forged three shipping letters to have the vehicles exported.

The prosecution charged the car dealer TK of aiding and abetting the employee in forgery, use of forged documents and embezzlement of the three cars.

According to the records, MA, 39, Emirati, chief supervisor at the vehicle testing centre, told investigators that in 2012 his department received a complaint from a vehicle owner that the ownership of his cars had been transferred to someone else.

“We investigated the complaint and found out that three cars had been handed over to Wasl’s Al Jidaf branch and that EM was the employee who worked on this issue,” MA testified.

“When confronted, EM initially denied forging the certificates and claimed that the owner of the cars came to him with a man who wanted to buy the cars but left him and went to pray, so he (EM) finalised the sale operations with the buyer. He claimed that he had forgotten to take the owner’s signature and that he had handed over the car’s documents to the buyer.

The records of the cars did not include any sale agreement between the buyer and the seller.

“EM later changed his story and claimed that he was asked by a Sudanese worker at the car dealer to finish all the paperwork related to the three cars and supplied him with the needed documents except for the sale agreement that he promised to submit later.

“EM claimed that as the Sudanese did not present the sale agreement, he got scared of informing seniors about the issue,” the centre’s official told investigators.

The centre took disciplinary action against EM and asked both EM and the car dealing company owned by TK to solve the problem with the cars’ owner, return the cars to him and compensate him.

As no settlement was reached, the victim, OM, 32, Emirati, who owned the cars, told investigators that he bought the vehicles at an auction in November 2011 and a month later handed over the cars to TK to look for prospective buyers.

After keeping the three cars in his custody, TK offered the owner to exchange the three cars for a Range Rover. The later agreed and waited until the car dealer finished repair work on the Range Rover.

However, the car dealer started delaying the exchange deal.

“Four months later, I was shocked when I found out that the cars had been transferred to TK’s name and that he had sold them to others. I complained to the Road and Transport Authority and a year later I was compensated for the loss,” OM told investigators.

The cars dealer admitted before the Prosecution that he had sold the cars for Dh65,000 and using the money he had bought a car for Dh80,000 that he registered it in his own name.

However, he denied the accusations when he appeared before the court.

The court will reconvene on September 2.
 

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