Bowser Driver Jailed 8 Years for 6.7 Million Rufiyaa Diesel Fraud at MPL

The Criminal Court has sentenced Sajib, a Bangladeshi national and the driver of a fuel bowser involved in a 6.7 million Maldivian Rufiyaa fraud committed by Fuel Supply Maldives (FSM) in its delivery of oil to Maldives Ports Limited (MPL), to a term of eight years, nine months, and 18 days. In this case, the state brought two charges against him. One charge was a fraud charge. It was alleged that while holding the position of driver for FSM's fuel bowser during the year 2020, he defrauded FSM of a total of 783,100 liters of diesel that FSM was required to deliver to MPL, by entrusting Hassan Dheedhi from S. Maraadhoo Azaad, who held the position of Assistant Manager at MPL, with transactions for delivering oil to MPL in 119 delivery notes prepared from January 13, 2020, to the end of October 2020, stating that diesel had been delivered to MPL. He was sentenced to eight years in prison for this charge. Additionally, in this case, he was ordered to pay 6.7 million Maldivian Rufiyaa, which is the value of the 783,100 liters of diesel he defrauded, to the state as compensation. The second charge brought by the state in connection with this case was a charge of forging a false document knowingly with the intention of deceiving someone. This was because he prepared and signed 119 false delivery notes to claim that diesel had been delivered as part of this fraud. He was sentenced to nine months and 18 days in prison for this charge. Besides the driver, Mohamed Aiman from Faidhoo Varu, who was then the Chief Manager of the Procurement Department at MPL and participated in this fraud alongside him, has also been charged and sentenced on two counts. In the fraud charge brought against him, he was sentenced to eight years in prison and ordered to pay 6.7 million Maldivian Rufiyaa, equivalent to the value of 783,100 liters of diesel, to the state as compensation. Furthermore, regarding the charge of declaring something contained in such a document as true when knowing it to be false with the intention of deceiving someone, he was sentenced to exactly nine months and 18 days in prison.