Dubai Public Prosecution has charged a businessman, identified as A.K., with money laundering and released a second suspect, a female employee at a local bank. The decision to release the second suspect was based on the lack of evidence linking her to the alleged criminal activity and facilitating money transfers within and outside the country, except for the claims made by the first suspect himself.
The Public Prosecution questioned the Jordanian suspect, M.A., who the first suspect alleged had taken 300,000 dirhams and a round-trip ticket from Dubai to Canada as a commission for facilitating money transfers. However, the first suspect failed to provide evidence to support these claims.
On the other hand, the Central Bank’s report confirmed that the suspect’s funds were suspicious and derived from illegal sources. The Kingdom of the Netherlands also reported previous criminal activities related to money laundering involving only the first suspect.
The report further indicated that foreign entities from European countries requested an investigation into the first suspect’s activities related to money laundering, specifically between India and European countries through fictitious companies based in Dubai with no actual operations. The Central Bank only discovered this when information from outside the country revealed the suspect’s involvement in illegal money laundering activities.
The defense lawyer, Nasser Hashem from Al Kamali Law Firm, argued that all the allegations made by the first suspect were baseless and lacked evidence. He also emphasized that he had no proof against the second suspect and claimed that the first suspect was trying to implicate her to avoid punishment. The lawyer requested the inclusion of surveillance footage from the bank where the second suspect worked to validate his statements and determine whether she received envelopes containing money or not. Based on these requests, the Public Prosecution decided to release the second suspect, M.A., until further proceedings.