DUBAI // Three women who kidnapped a manicurist and filmed her naked before sending the video to her brother, demanding a ransom, were each jailed for three years.
The Moroccan women and an Egyptian businessman kidnapped the manicurist on September 19 last year, while she was waiting for a taxi in Al Nahda.
They pushed the 29-year-old into the businessman’s car before taking her to a nearby flat where they threatened to kill her if she screamed.
Two other Moroccan women, aged 24 and 26, and a 30-year-old Ethiopian woman were found guilty of aiding and abetting by locking up the victim in the one-bedroom apartment. Each was sentenced to two years in prison.
The manicurist’s passport was torn and she was slapped repeatedly then forced to strip naked and use unethical language while her kidnappers filmed her and then sent the video to her brother in Morocco, the court heard.
“When I asked her what she wanted from me, she said money,” the victim said.
“I told her I did not have money but she told me that my brother was rich because he owns a business in Italy.”
After sending the video via WhatsApp, the kidnappers forced the manicurist to call her sibling and tell him to pay Dh2.58 million to the kidnapper’s husband in Morocco or they would post the recording online.
“After the phone call, the 26-year-old woman called for three men to come into the room then [she] told them to rape me but, when they saw that I had my menstrual cycle, they refrained from doing so,” the victim said.
The brother agreed to send the money within two days but, in that time, his sister was beaten by all five women and stabbed in the hand.
The brother called a friend of his in Dubai, who reported the incident to police after seeing the video. Police found the apartment and raided it at 11pm the same day.
“The female defendants were smoking shisha in the living room while the victim was alone in the bedroom,” said a 31-year-old Emirati policeman.
The officer said all the women were arrested at the apartment and the victim referred to Latifa Hospital. The male defendants were apprehended later.
The video was found on one of the kidnapper’s phones, as well as other pictures of the manicurist tied up and blindfolded.
Two men, aged 30 and 33, were found guilty of aiding and abetting and each was sentenced to a year in prison.
The 26-year-old Moroccan kidnapper was also found guilty of a sexual assault charge, issuing threats, blackmail and deliberately damaging an official document.
They will all be deported after completing their sentences.
tzriqat@thenational.ae
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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