Fraudster jailed for three months for non-existent-car scam

Dubai criminal court heard that the defendant was arrested by police after an angry customer flew over to Dubai to report him.

DUBAI// A Nigerian man who escaped conviction for fraud in two previous cases because of a lack of evidence was jailed for three months for the same charge on Sunday.
N?O, 34, was found guilty at the criminal court of obtaining nearly Dh500,000 by selling non-existent cars to people in Kazakhstan.
The court heard that he was arrested by police after an angry customer flew to Dubai to report him.
V?F, 30, a woman from Kazakhstan, said she was checking a website for a company located in Dubai that sold cars to the Kazakh market.
"There were images of the available cars and names of managers as well as their contact details," she said.
Her husband called someone who purported to be the manager of the company and negotiated the purchase of a Mercedes for US$82,000 (Dh301,000), including shipping and customs charges.
V?F said she wired over the money and the Dubai company sent back a shipping letter and ownership certificate. Believing everything was legitimate, she paid $50,800 for another car.
When the delivery date was overdue, V?F contacted the general manager, whose name and contact details were on the website.
"He said that the cars were shipped already from the UAE but have been seized at the Iranian ports and we had to pay $10,300 extra to help get them out," said V?F.
At this point she realised she had been conned, so flew to Dubai to file a report with police.
Police found that the website was fake, so tracked down the bank-account details to which V?F had transferred the money. They arrested N?O as he was withdrawing money from the account.
N?O denied knowing that the money had been illegally obtained, claiming a friend of his had asked him to withdraw the money in return for a share of it.
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