Employee 'caused Etisalat Dh700,000 in losses through use of nearly 200 SIM cards'

Egyptian is accused of forging applications and illegally obtaining and using 198 SIM cards and 35 smartphones, Dubai court hears.

An Egyptian sales executive denied causing more than Dh700,000 in losses for Etisalat after illegally obtaining and using 198 post-paid SIM cards and 35 smartphones.

Dubai Criminal Court was told that the 36-year-old forged several documents and applications between January 2015 and September 2016 to obtain the cards and the phones, causing Dh708,132 in losses to the telecommunications operator.

Prosecutors said that he abused the username and password granted to him by Etisalat to log into its system and handle applications. He allegedly entered fake names of individuals and companies on applications for SIM cards and smartphones.

He is charged with forgery, use of forged documents, abusing his position and fraudulently obtaining SIM cards and smartphones from his employer.

He denied all charges in court on Wednesday.

“I was assigned among a team to review all the applications that the defendant handled in the past two years and we found many of them completed successfully and handed to the applicants but the payments on each one was not paid for several months,” testified an Emirati auditor, 36.

The team also discovered that some of the applications lacked official documents mandatory when submitting such applications, he added.

“We couldn’t find the 51 original applications from the total number of applications he handled, which is 198,” added the auditor.

The next hearing will be on August 13.