Dubai passport officer jailed for falsifying exit visas

DUBAI // A passport control officer was jailed for a year for taking Dh400,000 in bribes to falsify computer records to show that hundreds of visitor-visa holders had left the country.

The criminal court heard that M A, 27, an Emirati, a worker with the Dubai Naturalisation and Residency Department (DNRD), had changed the status of 641 people.

He was fined Dh150,000 after being convicted of accepting bribes, forging documents and using forged documents by saving them on the department’s system.

K B, 29, and N K, 40, both Pakistani, were convicted of aiding and abetting M A and were given the same sentences as well as deportation orders.

The men were arrested after the DNRD received a tip-off about M A’s activities. A departmental investigation found that he had been amending the departure data using the user names and passwords of two other workers without their knowledge.

M A A, 30, an inspector with the DNRD, said he double checked the names of people that M A had entered into the system and found that they had entered the country on visitor visas but had not left.

All three denied the charges in court in September.