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Dubai: A senior official at the Dubai Naturalisation and Residency Department (DNRD) has been sacked and is being interrogated by the Public Prosecutor for illegally issuing various kinds of visas to ten commercial and tourist companies.
Major General Mohammad Ahmad Al Merri, Director General of DNRD, said each of the companies agreed to pay the official Dh120,000.
Major General Al Merri said the official accessed the system to issue visas using other staff members' passwords.
He said the case came to light ten days ago and the official received from the companies Dh53,000 of the total money to be paid to him later. He said companies were to pay the official more than Dh800,000.
He said the accused was arrested along with with an Arab man and a Chinese man while a fourth accused fled the country.
Major General Al Merri said every company, whether tourist, or commercial, are allotted a specific number of visas but the accused DNRD official illegally issued them more than their allocated number of visas.
"Members of the preventative security and the IT Department at DNRD were able to detect that the accused accessed his computer by using other employees' passwords," Major General Al Merri said. The sacked official used to issue tourist visas to commercial companies, which is also illegal.
The accused and his associates used to charge each company different rates for each visa issued to them. The ten companies have been blacklisted and they will not be issued visas.
"The companies will pay a hefty fine for bribing a governmental official," he said.
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