Уголовный суд Абу-Даби осудил 6 пакистанцев и 2 компании за отмывание денег

The Sentence Included Fines Up to AED 160 Million Abu Dhabi Criminal Court Convicts 6 Pakistanis and 2 Companies for Drug Money Laundering The Abu Dhabi Criminal Court, which has jurisdiction to examine the crimes of money laundering and tax evasion, convicted 6 accused persons, all Pakistani nationals, and two companies owned by the first accused, for committing money laundering by conducting suspicious banking transactions in an attempt to conceal the origin of funds obtained from drug trafficking. The court decided to punish each of the accused; (A.A.A.S), (M.S.K.M.A), (S.A.S.M.Z), (S.A.M.S.K.S), (K.T.D.T.M.D) and (A.Z.A) with ten years imprisonment with a fine of 10 million dirhams and deportation from the country after serving their sentences. The court also handed down rulings on two companies. One is specialised in advertising and the second in ecommerce, a fine of fifty million dirhams each and confiscation of the funds subject to the crime of money laundering whether cash amounts or tangible or intangible assets. The Abu Dhabi Judicial Department (ADJD) stated that the United Arab Emirates have an integrated and flexible financial legislative system and a specialised judicial structure to combat financial crimes which has contributed to reduce money laundering operations and helped to arrest those involved in such activities. The ADJD praised the complementarity of efforts between the various judicial, enforcement and financial bodies within the framework of a preventive and dissuasive control system aimed at protecting the national economy. The recent amendment of the Federal Law on Anti-Money Laundering and Combating the Financing of Terrorism; has helped to strengthen the capacity of the various competent bodies to combat these crimes more effectively, as the legislator has tightened the penalties for those found guilty of any of these crimes, and has broadened the scope of criminalisation to include anyone who proves to be aware of the criminal or illegal origin of the funds. The amended law considers the crime of money laundering as an independent one and provides that “proving the illicit source of the proceeds should not constitute a prerequisite to sentencing the perpetrator of the predicate offence". As to the details of the case; the Federal Public Prosecution of the United Arab Emirates has forwarded a copy of a drug trafficking case file that was discovered in Abu Dhabi, to Abu Dhabi Financial Prosecution to conduct a parallel financial investigation into the case within its territorial jurisdiction. The investigations showed that the four accused who were convicted of the predicate crime of drug trafficking; were in fact working as a gang formation comprising people inside and outside the country. The members of the gang located abroad used to deal with the buyer ("consumer") by directing him/her to the whereabouts of the drugs after depositing the price of the drugs into one of the bank accounts of the accused residing inside the UAE or into the account of one of the two companies. The amounts are transferred later on via foreign exchange offices to people in Pakistan. Nearly two million dirhams were found in the place of residence of the accused persons. The investigations conducted by the Financial Prosecution revealed the involvement of two other persons of the same nationality in the money laundering case, however their involvement in the predicate crime (drug trafficking) was not established. The Financial Prosecution had lifted the banking secrecy of the accused's accounts in accordance with the law. It was found that all of the said bank accounts had recorded a significant turnover which was not commensurate with the financial activities of the accused. The number of deposit operations on a single account of the first accused reached 50 operations in a single day with values between 500 and 1000 dirhams. The investigation revealed that eight of the depositors had a history of drug addiction. The first accused had different accounts in six banks in the United Arab Emirates and the second accused had accounts in three banks. The enquiries also showed that the first accused had accounts in two other banks in the name of two companies he owned, and that the turnover of the two accounts amounted to about eight million dirhams in six months, in a manner incompatible with the activities of the two companies, with suspicious deposit operations that were not supported by any document confirming the legality of their source. This confirms that the two companies were used as a cover for laundering money from the crime of drug trafficking, with the aim of concealing the source of the proceeds. On the other hand, the financial analysis of the accounts of the accused persons confirmed a correlation and coordination between these accounts in the context of organised operations. The investigations showed that the method used to receive and withdraw the funds was similar to that used in drug trafficking and that all the money deposited in these accounts is withdrawn by the persons involved in several instalments and transferred to other persons in Pakistan through various exchange offices in the United Arab Emirates.