4 Men Sentenced To 3 Years In Jail For Kidnapping, Torturing Woman In Dubai

Four Chinese men aged between 26 and 37 have been sentenced to three years in prison for abducting and torturing a Chinese woman in Dubai.

The Dubai Criminal Court further ordered their deportation after serving their prison sentences.

The incident took place on Aug. 3, 2022, when one of the four suspects, whom the victim had first met through social media in July, arranged to meet with the woman again in Jebel Ali to buy some digital currency from her. The victim told the police that when she arrived, she found that the man was accompanied by three other Chinese men.

"I met one of the men on Telegram a month before the incident. He then contacted me offering to sell me some digital currency, and we actually met, and I bought some digital money from him," the victim told the court. "So, we met on the date of the incident, but he showed up with three more men, and they kidnapped me."

During the meeting, one of the men showed the woman an ID card resembling that of the Chinese police and told her that she was wanted in China on corruption charges. The men then forced the victim out of her car and into the back of their vehicle, where they restrained her and covered her face.

The men reportedly took the victim to a location in Dubai Investment Park where they stripped her and tortured her with a Taser gun. The suspects also forced her to unlock her phone so they could access her digital currency wallet.

Police said they were able to transfer 8,000 units of digital currency worth more than Dh 30,000 and Dh 8,000 in cash from her purse. The attackers also stole the woman's Louis Vuitton bag worth Dh 7,500 before taking photos of her and threatening her that they would post them online if she reported them to the authorities.

The suspects then left the victim in her car and fled the scene. She managed to remove the covering on her face and take note of the suspects' car's number plate. Then she went on to report the incident to the police.

The police didn't reveal how they tracked down and arrested the men. In court, the suspects denied charges of kidnapping, torture, and theft but were eventually found guilty. They were given 15 days to appeal the sentence.

In another incident that took place in April 2022, four Chinese were arrested in Dubai for attacking a compatriot, taking his photograph, and sending his bloodied images to his girlfriend to pressure him to give them a hefty sum of money.