Number Plate Fraudster Jailed
Reg Plates ArticleNumber Plate Fraudster Jailed
A businessman who bought the No.1 limited edition licence plate in Abu Dhabi for Dh31 million has been sentenced to three years in jail for issuing a dud cheque to the organisers.
The Emirati man had bought the special number plate at an auction last year.
The Abu Dhabi Misdemeanour Court handed down the sentence to the Emirati man after he was found guilty of fraud and issuing a bounced cheque.
Abu Dhabi public prosecution had ordered for the detention of the 32-year-old man after organisers of the auction filed a complaint that he issued them a cheque after buying the number plate, even though he didn't have enough balance in his bank account.
Prosecutors had detained the businessman. He was charged with fraud and issuing a bounced cheque.
And during interrogation, the Emirati admitted to giving the cheque to orginisers despite being aware he didn't have sufficient funds in his account, said prosecutors.
"He said he was planning to re-sale the rare number plate at a profit so he could pay the value of the cheque to the organisers and maintain enough balance in his account," said a prosecutor.
Authorities, however, said one can only re-sale a number plate bought in an auction after one has paid the full amount and that any resale before making the payment is considered illegal.
The auction, which generated Dh99 million, was hosted by Emirates Auction in cooperation with Abu Dhabi Police on November 19, 2016 at Emirates Palace hotel to commemorate the Abu Dhabi Government's Golden Jubilee.
And the Emirati beat several bidders for the coveted plate after starting at Dh1 million. The limited-edition golden jubilee plates all featured the number 50 in the top left corner.
Fifty vanity Abu Dhabi number plates were up for grabs at the Emirates Auction event.
How close a series of letters or numbers are to a real name of word: if the match quality is high (and the numbers and letters are very convincing in making a popular word), the value of the registration plate will be higher. This means that a match like 5IMON, for the name Simon, will be worth a lot more than a more obscure set of letters and numbers that are not as convincing a match, such as S17 MMM for the name Sam.
The style of the plate: this means establishing if it is a new-style plate, an older-style format or if it is dateless or Irish, for instance. Other options are that it is a prefix-style plate or a suffix-style plate. New-style number plates, which have been produced since 2001, tend to be the least valuable because they are a bit less appealing to some collectors, plus the rule about not having plates that are newer than your car can also come into play, putting people off from buying a newer-style plate for their older car. Prefix-style number plates, which were in production between 1983 and 2001 can be more popular as more vehicles are entitled to have those licence numbers, and they may have fewer characters in total. Suffix-style plates, issued from 1963 to 1983 are relatively rare, which means they can attract higher prices than prefix-style plates and newer designs. Dateless number plates, also known as cherished number plates, were produced between 1903 and 1963 and are nearly always the most valuable number plate configurations; they have fewer digits and their dateless nature means that people can hide the age of their car. Irish number plates are similar to dateless number plates, especially because they don’t have a year identifier. They also tend to be cheaper than other types of vehicle registration plates.
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