Millionaire British cryptocurrency investor Waseem Khan was arrested in Dubai on suspicion of drug peddling and influencing criminal proceedings due to a disastrous “shopping trip.”
According to Knewz.com, Khan was in detention for more than two months, and the cost of making the required legal representation arrangements severely impacted his income.
Khan moved to Dubai a few years ago from the United Kingdom and now resides in a fourth-floor flat in the posh Jumeirah Village Circle.
The problem started when the affluent cryptoinvestor sent $5,700 to a buddy in the United Kingdom in exchange for about 15,000 dirhams, which were supposed to be given to the millionaire so that he could go shopping.
Police attacked Khan’s Dubai home shortly after someone gave him the money, “laughing and joking” about the bleak prospects that lay ahead as they apprehended him.
The cryptocurrency billionaires recounted the seemingly sudden events leading up to his arrest:
“I just got home and made some supper after working out for two hours at the gym at around seven o’clock in the evening. And the security guard knocked on my door just as I was about to eat. I opened the door because I obviously thought he wanted to talk to me, and a minute later, six policemen walked in and slapped me on the head.”
“They’ve handcuffed me without even saying a word, and they said, ‘We know everything’ and ‘You’re wrong and we’re right’ and ‘You’re under arrest,'” Khan added.
“I certainly didn’t do anything wrong, so it was scary. “Why am I being treated like a criminal?” was my thought.
‘You’re going to get the death penalty, you’re going to get 25 years,’ one of the policemen immediately replied. And they were merely making jokes and laughing about it,” Khan continued.
He added that he was assured of a speedy release by a senior police official at the station, who also declared him innocent.
But instead, he was held in a cramped prison cell with “killers, rapists, and drug lords” for the next two and a half months.
“They questioned me about everything when I was arrested. ‘Don’t worry,’ said one of the officers, the CID chief who held me. Khan shared his experiences with the media, saying, “You’re going to be released in an hour, we know you’re innocent, you had nothing to do with this.”
“So obviously I took his word and he said, ‘They’re just going to take your fingerprints, just go through this door and you’ll be out in one hour,'” he recalled.
“After entering this door, I found myself in a whole prison cell with 200 inmates lying on the floor and an unpleasant stench… You said I was going to go, so I screamed, ‘What’s this?’ and they simply shut the door after me, leaving me inside,” he continued.
A “hellhole” prison, according to Khan, is “the sort of thing you see in the movies.”
“There were drug lords, murderers, and rapists—people who had committed heinous crimes. It was filled with some of the world’s worst people. There were people who made fun of you every day. Khan claimed in his statement that the living conditions were appalling.
If there were minor issues, you would have to argue over them. On few occasions, I almost got into a physical altercation with someone.
“The facilities were moldy, the food was terrible, the showers were freezing, and everything just smelled. The prison guards were terrible, and so were the phones. “My luck was so bad in there that I didn’t even think I’d get out,” Khan continued.
Because of the nature of the charges against him, the cryptocurrency investor is presently not allowed to leave the country while his criminal trial is ongoing.
In addition, he had to sell up a lot of his possessions, including his vehicles, in order to cover the required legal fees. His attorneys, however, are still unable to offer him a 100% chance of winning the lawsuit.
“I am happy that I’ve been released on bail, but I’m also really worried as my lawyers have said, ‘This is Dubai, anything can happen here,'” According to The Daily Express, Khan said in a statement.
He stated, “[His legal counsel] don’t want to give me false hope,” adding that although his attorneys think he has a decent chance of defending himself, he does not think the local court system is fair.
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