17 May 2007

Numbers don’t add up

A government employee made dhs30,000 by illegally using the Dubai Police computer network to transfer the ownership of exclusive number plates - including some that belonged to the royal family, a Dubai court has heard. The 23-year-old UAE national, identified only as FS, had a job registering cars in Qusais.
One day he was sat at the computer when he noticed one of the policemen he worked with had left open a sensitive page on the database which was only meant to be seen by police officials. It contained information about car number plates around the city and allowed them to be easily tranferred of cancelled.FS is then said to have chosen four numbers he liked the look of - and is alleged to have picked two that belonged to dead members of the royal family.He llegedly transferred the plates into the name of one of his friends, without his knowledge, as he knew the licence number and was aware that his friend did not currently own a car.FS is alleged to have left the document open and returned to it the next day, when he tranferred another two numbers. One week later a friend of his brother came to FS asking for help in getting out of paying traffic fines. FS is then believed to have registered him for a different number plate, heloping him avoid the charges.He began to charge for his services and secured dhs30,000 from people desperate for special number plates. He was eventually found out when police noted that one of his buyers was trying to sell his car using a manipulated number plate. A verdict will be issued later this month. Source

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