Dubai Police has issued a warning to online car sellers to ensure a cheque has cleared before handing over goods.
The warning comes after more than 20 people were conned into signing over goods, including luxury cars, to a gang of five crooks who paid with a fraudulent cheque.
The online fraud, which took place via the Dubai-based classifieds website Dubizzle, saw owners of a $380,000 Rolls-Royce and a $215,000 Mercedes Benz fall victim to the scam.
General Khalil Ibrahim Al Mansouri, assistant chief of Dubai Police for Criminal Investigations, explained that the gang would complete the registration on a Thursday and pay by cheque, asking the cheque to be cashed after the weekend, by which stage the car would be sold on at a lower price.
“The gang conned 21 people. They were a professional gang and were conning the victims by posing as merchants, wearing luxury clothes and accessories,” Al Mansouri told 7Days newspaper.
“They were not negotiating with prices and just wrote cheques. That seduced the victims to accept the cheques and complete the transfer of the cars just before the weekends.”
Dubai Police arrested the gang, which included four Arabs and one Indian.
Dubizzle general manager Barry Judge told the newspaper: “We always aim to protect our users and if we detect any illegal activity we are quick to delete the ad and warn the user.”
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