Dubai sentences Indian cleaner to prison for stealing watches worth over Rs 14 crore

Dubai: A Dubai court has sentenced an Indian cleaner to one year in jail after he was found guilty of stealing as many as 86 expensive watches, worth over 8.3 million dirhams ($2 million).

The 26-year-old cleaner, who was accused of stealing the valuables from a watch and jewellery shop where he worked, was sentenced on Wednesday by the Dubai Court of First Instance, the Khaleej Times said in a report.

Two Pakistani men (cousins), aged 44 and 25, both fugitives, who were accused in absentia for possession of the stolen watches, received one-year imprisonment each.

The court ordered the deportation of all the three men after they have served their jail terms.

A complaint was filed on January 6 this year at the Naif police station.

"On December 25 last year, I was in one of my shops when an Indian salesman brought to my attention that a watch, worth 30,000 dirhams, was found in its box in the trash bin," the owner said in the complaint.

According to the owner, they then checked the shop's CCTV cameras which captured the cleaner taking the watch, putting it in a box and dropping it in the trash bin so he could smuggle it outside the shop later.

When the owner asked the defendant about the theft in the presence of the latter's brother who was asked to come to Dubai from India, the cleaner confessed he had stolen two watches worth 250,000 and 270,000 dirhams.

He sold each of them to a Pakistani man for 10,000 dirhams and claimed he was not yet paid for the second one.

During the public prosecution investigation, the defendant admitted to stealing the watches and then selling them to his two accomplices.