The imprisonment of a driver and his friend who took advantage of a government taxi for their own account

The Dubai Criminal Court sentenced a taxi driver and his friend to six months in prison and a fine of 21,000 dirhams, after the driver handed over the taxi vehicle belonging to a government institution to his friend to operate it for their personal benefit.

In detail, a government inspector suspected a taxi belonging to a government institution that was being driven by a driver in a dangerous manner, so he stopped him, and asked him to show his card, only to discover that he had been dismissed from the institution two years ago, and that he had agreed with the driver of the car assigned to drive it by the institution to hand it over to him after the end of his official working hours for use in transportation passengers for their own good.

The inspector found that the second driver had disconnected the meter, camera connections, and the GPS device, so that officials could not discover the location of the vehicle.

The relevant government institution conducted an internal investigation with the accused, and referred them to the Public Prosecution, which in turn referred them to the Criminal Court on charges of “a public employee obtaining for himself and others a benefit from a work of his job, and deliberately harming its funds” and convicted them.

In the investigations of the Public Prosecution, the inspector said that he was assigned by the institution to monitor the negative practices of the drivers of its vehicles, and that during his field work on Airport Street, he saw a taxi traveling in a dangerous way, and it would return to the same area whenever it reached the end of the street.

The loud voice of its recorder also raised his astonishment, and when he stopped her driver, he was surprised by the presence of a bottle of alcohol in his hand, and it was not in a normal condition, so he asked him to show his business card, so that the driver presented him with a card belonging to another driver, so he asked him about his card, and the other told him that he was working in Indeed, the institution, but terminated his services due to penal and traffic violations.

In his testimony, the inspector explained that the accused told him that the car belonged to his colleague, the owner of the card, and that the latter had been giving it to him for two months to work on it for their benefit after disconnecting the car's tracking connections.

He added that he made sure to disconnect the camera, GPS and meter wires himself.

The first defendant stated in the investigations of the Public Prosecution that he works as a driver in the government institution, and that he handed over the taxi in his custody to the second suspect, after the end of his shift, to be used to transport passengers for their personal benefit, without prior permission or permission from the institution.

He indicated that he received a phone call from the control center to inquire about the location of the vehicle, so he was afraid, and reported theft, then retracted his statements, claiming that he kept it, because he intended to work on it later, but he admitted his crime in the end, indicating that he gave it to his friend to work illegally, for their own benefit. 

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