A clinic clerk in Dubai has been sentenced to prison for operating a fraudulent scheme that involved issuing forged sick-leave certificates. The illegal operation was uncovered after a private company grew suspicious of an unusually high number of employees suddenly taking sick leave, all of which featured digital stamps from the same facility. Upon investigation, HR officials flagged the inconsistencies, leading authorities to discover that the clerk had been bypassing mandatory medical examinations to sell backdated health certificates for payments ranging from a few hundred to over a thousand dirhams.

By exploiting the clinic’s digital health portal, the clerk generated fraudulent documents and used forged physician signatures to validate them, allowing employees to claim unearned paid time off. While the defense attempted to dismiss the actions as minor administrative errors, the Dubai Criminal Court rejected these claims, ruling that the defendants had intentionally manipulated official records and committed corporate fraud. In addition to their prison sentences, the involved expatriates face deportation, and the court has mandated financial penalties to address the breach of trust and the economic losses incurred by the affected businesses.