The judge hearing the case of 54 people accused of scamming more than Dh800 million from thousands of people in fake car deals has ordered the main defendant in the fourth case to be arrested again.

The order came after he failed to pay off the victims despite being out of jail on bail for more than a month.

The man is among 54 defendants - most of them Emiratis - who are on trial at the Abu Dhabi Misdemeanour Court accused of money laundering and defrauding nearly 2,000 people in a car scam. The main defendants are currently in police custody, and the rest were given bail.

All the defendants had denied the charges in court. Their case was split into four and the court has been trying them since July.

In the latest hearing on Wednesday, Judge Sayed Abed Al Basir said the public prosecution had requested that the Emirati man goes back to prison. They argued that they had not received "any document to show that he had cleared any of his debts to the car owners".

The car dealer had earlier been granted bail after promising to pay off "95 per cent of the money" he owed to the investors.

The defendant, however, told the court that he was "surprised" by the prosecutors' decision to have him detained again, as he had "tried his best" to pay off some of the investors.

"My bank accounts had been frozen for seven months now, but I tried to raise Dh3 million by borrowing. I cleared the cash owed to some of the investors, but many of them wanted higher profits," he said in court.

He also said he would hand in documents that supported his claims to the court through his lawyer.

More evidence presented by the prosecutors showed that authorities had seized Dh53 million in cash that was hidden in plastic bags in a car showroom belonging to the main defendant in the first case.

Another Dh26 million in cash was also seized from the second defendant.

The fourth defendant had confessed that he collected more than Dh20 million from the victims and handed it over to the first defendant through his assistant.

The charges

Official court documents stated that the scam began after one of the men needed money to pay off a debt. He bought a car and paid for it using a post-dated cheque. He then sold the car and cleared the debt.

When time came to cash the cheque, he bought another using another post-dated cheque, sold it off and cleared the first seller.

Investigations showed that the gang lured customers into buying cars from them and later, they would encourage them to sell the cars, again through the gang, at a higher price by offering the customers big profits.

Officers said the fraudsters promised the investors a 100 per cent return on their money, before they reduced it to between 70 and 80 per cent.

The accused allegedly issued post-dated cheques to the investors. Those people who invested first received the promised profit, which encouraged others to join the scheme that went on for a few years, according to authorities.

Source: Khaleej Times