Five individuals were jailed by a Dubai court for renting luxury cars, altering their documents and subletting them before staging crashes to try and secure insurance payouts.
The Dubai Criminal Court also fined the defendants and ordered them to pay joint restitution for vehicles that were damaged or not returned. The expatriate defendants were ordered to be deported after serving their sentences.
How the scam unfolded
According to court documents, the group operated by mainly targeting car rental agencies across Dubai. Members first rented high-end vehicles from various companies using valid identification but failed to return them when the rental agreements expired.
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Investigators found that soon after renting the vehicles, the defendants altered vehicle registration documents and number plates. Afterwards, they offered the cars for rent through online channels at reduced rates. The vehicles were then sublet to other people while the original rental companies remained unaware of the whereabouts of their vehicles.
After making money by subletting the vehicles, the group staged traffic collisions involving some of the cars they rented out and filed insurance claims, seeking compensation for the damage.
The court heard that the crashes were deliberately arranged to make the vehicles appear to have been involved in genuine accidents.
How it was discovered
The case came to light after a car rental agency noticed irregularities in their tracking system and reported several missing vehicles to police. Dubai Police investigators traced the cars to underground parking facilities. There they discovered the altered documents and arrested members of the group.
During the trial, the defence argued that the case involved breaches of rental contracts and should be treated as a civil dispute instead of a criminal one. The court rejected that argument, finding that the defendants had gone beyond failing to return rented vehicles by altering the official documents and staging accidents to pursue insurance claims.
The court convicted the five expat defendants of wrongdoing and imposed prison terms as well as financial penalties. It also ordered them to jointly repay the value of the missing and damaged cars. They will be deported after they serve their sentences.