He lured his victims online and gave them a preview

A fraudster offers a villa that he does not own for rent

The two accused got the key to the villa with post-dated checks.

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A 24-year-old Asian resident decided to implement a ploy to lure those looking for shared housing. Together with another, referred to the Misdemeanour Court, he took the initiative to place advertisements for vacant rooms for rent on pages and websites after they agreed with the agent of the owner of one of the villas to rent it from him, and one of them signed On post-dated cheques, they aim to lure their victims to the villa, to offer them rooms and get money from them.

After listening to the reports of the victims, who decided to turn to the police after discovering the trick, one of the accused was arrested, while the other is still on the run.

The accused was referred to the Public Prosecution Office, and from there to the Criminal Court, which sentenced him to one month in prison, and fined him the sums seized from the victims, estimated at 11,400 dirhams.

In the referral order, the Public Prosecution stated that the accused reached with another to seize varying amounts of money from several victims, using a fraudulent method, represented by placing an advertisement on the social network about the availability of rooms for rent.

In order to establish their allegations, the accused enabled the victims to inspect the rooms, which contributed to deceiving them and getting them to hand over the sums they requested.

One of the victims said in the police report that he was browsing a social networking site and saw an advertisement for a room for rent in a certain area, so he called the owner of the advertisement and inquired about the location, and the other sent him pictures of the house, rooms and location, and assured him that he could come and inspect himself.

The victim added that he came to the place and admired the room and paid a deposit of 1000 dirhams, waiting to receive the key and live in the place.

But the accused did not contact him on time, so he called him several times, but he did not answer him, and turned off his phone.

Another victim indicated that he saw the advertisement on a social site, so he communicated with the advertiser, and asked him to inspect the place on the ground in order to be assured that it is at the level of the photos. Rent the room, and set a date for moving into the residence.

When he called the accused on the appointed day, he did not answer his phone, nor did he receive the room key from him.

It later found out that he was not the only tenant of the room.

The statements of the rest of the victims in the police report matched the two previous testimonies. Everyone inspected the rooms within about one day, at different times, then the fraudster disappeared, did not answer their calls, and took their money with his other partner.

Regarding the place he used to tighten his trick and deceive the victims, a representative of the owner of the villa said that he is renting villas owned by his boss.

About 12 days before the day the fraud occurred, two Asian people came to him for the purpose of renting a villa, and he agreed with them on the price, and issued a contract to them in the name of one of them, and he issued a number of checks in favor of the owner of the villa, so he gave him the key to the house to inspect and study his needs, provided that the checks are issued at a later date.

The complainant added that he was then surprised that the accused rented the villa in the room system to a number of people, and received sums of money from them, but he did not give them the rooms and evaded them after seizing their money.

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