Fraudsters have found a new way to mint money in Oman. While the challenging economy is already putting companies under pressure; fraud businessmen enter Oman, produce forged documents, give false promises, submit post-dated cheques, purchase goods on credit, sell them for another buyer on half price, make money and disappear by pushing the companies into more trouble.

“As we all are desperate to get some business to cushion the loss due to the struggling economy, we are betrayed by cunning businessmen,” an official from a sales department in a company, who was duped by a fraud company told The Arabian Stories.

According to the company official, the fraud businessmen enter Oman, buy an old defunct company and approach us to get goods in credit.

“When we see the company’s name, under the presumption that the company is in the market for a long time, we agree for the trade. The fraud businessmen give us post-dated cheques and purchase goods. And what they do is sell the goods at half price to buyers and then disappear with the money,” the official said. 

The official said that this is not only affecting the working partners of the company but also the Omani chairman of the company.

“When these guys fly away, it is the Omani sponsor who is in trouble,” he added. He shared his experience which happened last year with the fraudsters to The Arabian Stories. 

Who is in trouble?
“We are into generator sale business. One day we got an inquiry from a company. We were ready to give our products to them on credit basis by accepting their 45 days post-dated cheque from the date of purchase,” he said.

“We were cheated,” he added.

According to the official, such cheating is becoming rampant and they are confused to identify the genuine buyer.

Recently, a local English daily Times of Oman quoting Royal Oman Police had reported that there has been an increase in the number of cases of bounced cheques.

The Royal Oman Police statistics of cases involving bounced cheques show that in 2018, 3,054 cases were registered, compared to 2,963 cases the year before.

Police officials also said that those who try to get away with cheque fraud would be punished to the full extent of Oman’s police and justice systems, including liaison between international police agencies.

Many also committed fraud by tampering with their cheque’s signature as they didn’t have enough money in their accounts.

Lieutenant Colonel Fahad Al Hosni
Assistant Director at the Criminal Investigation Department – Royal Oman Police

Bounced cheque cases rising
Speaking to Times of Oman, Lieutenant Colonel Fahad Al Hosni, Assistant Director at the Criminal Investigation Department of Muscat Police Command, said: “There were 3,054 cases of bounced cheques registered with the ROP in 2018, compared to 2,963 cases in 2017. Muscat topped other governorates in the number of bounced cheques with 1,920 cases because it’s the capital and densely populated.”

He added, “In case the cheque is dead, the cheque will be referred to the ROP and Public Prosecution and then to courts. Many also committed fraud by tampering with their cheque’s signature as they didn’t have enough money in their accounts.”

Lt. Col. Al Hosni also added that banks who refused to honor customers’ cheques without providing a convincing reason would also be penalized, adding that many citizens and residents who tried to pay using bounced cheques normally used them for either impulse buy or frivolous items that they actually did not need.

He also urged those who intended to sell their real estate properties to make sure that the cheque is certified before they surrender the property to the buyer.

“They have to make sure that there are sufficient funds for these cheques,” he added.

Bouncing a cheque was the number one crime in Oman in 2017, according to Public Prosecution data.

Issuing bounced cheques topped the list of the 10 most reported crimes in Oman in 2017.

A total of 4,716 overall cheque-related cases were recorded in 2017, compared to 5,470 cases in 2016.

Muscat topped other governorates in cheque crimes with 2,270 cases, followed by North Batinah, which registered 499 cases.

According to the Central Bank of Oman, insufficient funds continue to lead the list of reasons for bounced cheques (74.88 percent), followed by accounts that have been closed or “legally blocked” accounts (9.79 percent), and bank encoding errors (4.05 percent).