Cross-dressing robber jailed

A man who dressed as woman with the intention of carrying out a jewellery shop robbery in Dubai has been jailed for two months.

Dubai Court of Misdemeanors handed down the sentence to the French visitor who had donned an abaya and niqab and armed himself with a knife and plastic pistol from Carrefour to carry out the heist.

Official records state that a police patrol spotted the defendant in the abaya in the Gold Souk in Deira and confronted him.

“We suspected her because she was walking like a man. He was wearing black gloves and only his eyes were showing. He was carrying a handbag. He entered a shop so we followed him in asked for his ID. He spoke like a woman and tried to lower his voice but it was obvious that he was a man,” an Emirati policeman said in official records.

“We asked him to take off the niqab and found that he was a man with a beard. We arrested him and found a plastic pistol, knife and tape inside his bag.”

The French man said during police investigations that he took the clothes from his wife and intended to commit a robbery.

“I bought the plastic pistol and tape from Carrefour and the knife was from my hotel. I had monitored the shop for a day before I was arrested,” he said.

He claimed he had debts of 1 million euros and had come to Dubai to steal diamonds to pay them off.