Trio jailed for selling cars using fake Dubai transport authority documents

Scam using forged RTA ownership certificates netted Dh600,000

Three men will spend six months each in jail for forgery, use of forged documents and fraudulently obtaining Dh600,000 in September 2013.
Two Armenian men, aged 33 and 35, and a 29-year-old Iraqi scammed two Syrians for the money after selling them cars using fake documents.
The three forged RTA ownership certificates for 38 of the 45 vehicles they agreed to sell to the two Syrian victims, aged 51 and 36, who said the trio claimed they bought the vehicles from Copra auction company.
The victims paid the scammers for five cars and were given the ownership certificates, but when they went to the company to take the vehicles they were told their certificates had been altered.
Records show the 33-year-old Armenian, who remains at large, had registered his name with the auction house's electronic system and processed the car sales to the Syrian men under the name of one of the other two defendants.
"We checked who originally bought the cars then sold them to the victims through our electronic system and we found it was an Armenian man," said a British witness from Copra auction house.
He said the cars originally belonged to Dubai Taxi, which offered them for sale through an auction.
He said the cars — including Hyundai sonatas, Toyota Camrys and Nissan Altimas — were kept in a showroom in Ras Al Khor and are only handed to the buyer after an electronic auction is held.
"When a car is sold and paid for, we hand the buyer an ownership certificate but we leave the name of the buyer empty in case he wants to resell the car. When we checked the ownership certificates provided by the defendants, we discovered that they all belonged to one car, but the number of engines was changed on each one, basically they bought one car and when they were given its certificate, they forged 38 copies of it," said a Jordanian employee of the auction company.
The three men were not present in court to face charges on their first hearing last August. However, they were all found guilty and sentenced to six months in jail each, which will be followed by deportation.