A woman identified by her initials, S.N., woke to a stream of bank alerts one morning to find her savings, accumulated over several years, had been stripped from her account overnight.
“I wasn’t even using my phone or making any purchases. I was fast asleep while someone unknown was draining money from my account,” she said. Her complaint was one of several that reached Dubai Police’s General Department of Criminal Investigation, triggering an inquiry that ended in the arrest of a six-member fraud gang.
The group, which Dubai Police have labelled the “Unexpected Deduction” gang, built a fake online shopping website to harvest victims’ card details. Those details were then used to make unauthorised purchases and move funds into digital wallets the gang had opened specifically to receive the stolen money.
Some of the captured card data was also sold on to other fraudsters, enabling a further wave of deductions from victims’ accounts. Officers also found the gang had opened bank accounts and used cheque books to support the scheme.
Following the initial complaints, investigators formed a dedicated team, tracked all six suspects to a shared residence and carried out a coordinated raid. Bank cards taken from victims, which the gang planned to resell, were among the items recovered during the operation.
Dubai Police are urging residents to verify the legitimacy of websites before entering card or personal information, and to avoid sharing banking details with unknown parties. Anyone who notices unfamiliar transactions can report them through the Dubai Police contact centre on 901, the Police Eye service, or the eCrime feature on the Dubai Police app and website.
