Authorities in the United Arab Emirates have arrested and sentenced four Nigerians, including three women, to three years imprisonment over a dating app scam.
According to reports, the Nigerians had lured a 37-year-old Saudi Arabian into an apartment in Dubai via a dating app sometime in June 2020.
The victim was locked inside the apartment for three hours while the Nigerians tortured him and scalded his private parts with hot water.
The quartet were said to have also robbed the Saudi man of his money and left their victim with a 10 per cent permanent disability following the attack.
According to Gulf News, the victim told the Dubai Court of First Instance he “received a message from a woman through the app asking to meet. An African woman opened the door and claimed the woman will be back and she asked me to wait for her.”
He added that around four or five women joined the four Nigerian men to attack him. They tied his hand and stripped him naked while a woman, who is still at large, poured boiling water on his groin and others were recording.
He was reportedly tortured, hit in the eyes and ears, forced to open the bank’s application on his smartphone, and revealed the passcodes to his credit cards.
Gulf News reported that the 37-year-old resisted for a while, but in the end, gave up and gave the passcode. Three women went to the ATM to withdraw the money but returned telling him the passcode was wrong and poured more boiling water on his body, causing him second-degree burns.
The man fainted and when he regained consciousness, he managed to reach the road to see a police patrol speaking with an Indian man, who was also complaining after the gang attacked him with a similar modus operandi and stole his money.
The attack left the man with a 10 per cent permanent disability due to the assault, the report said.
Dubai Public Prosecution charged the defendants with confinement, theft, sexual abuse, physical assault, causing a disability, and issuing threats.
They were sentenced to three years in jail to be followed by deportation.
They were additionally slapped with Dh2,400.
