DUBAI // A banker and his wife were on Tuesday accused of fraudulently obtaining more than Dh34 million from his company at Dubai Criminal Court.
Commercial department manager M F, 50, and his 46-year-old wife, D F, both from India, allegedly embezzled the money from the Commercial Bank of Dubai after fabricating business dealings with managers at 11 companies.
The 11 managers, all Indians, face charges of aiding and abetting the couple.
Their companies and two others are charged with taking part in the alleged crime as corporate bodies, as the transactions were made in the names of the companies.
Prosecutors said the alleged fraud had been taking place since 2006 until the couple were found out in May last year.
An Emirati human-resource manager at the Commercial Bank of Dubai, H A, 34, testified that M F,who was working at the bank’s Jebel Ali branch, started raising suspicions that he was embezzling money when he strayed from protocol.
“The suspicions began when he directed one of the employees to close an active account because its holder had died, despite the fact that there was one operation made on that account that day and that this was not the procedure taken to close an account for the death of a client,” said the Emirati.
H A said an audit of the documents of M F’s department was conducted following the incident, and evidence of embezzlement was found.
M F was called in to discuss the matter but he stalled. The bank then learnt that he had flown to Qatar, but he returned within weeks.
O S, the bank’s auditing manager, testified that the defendant had denied any wrongdoing on his part when he attended a meeting to discuss suspicions about his activity.
“He said he had nothing and asked for a day to prepare his detailed answers,” said O S.
It was then that the bank lodged a police complaint against M F.
The court did not read out the charges against the couple on Tuesday. But it ordered the prosecutors to amend the charges, although the nature of the amendments were not explained.
salamir@thenational.ae