A UAE-based brokerage firm vanished overnight, taking millions of dirhams from investor funds. Until last month, Gulf First Commercial Brokers had two office spaces in Capital Golden Tower in Dubai's Business Bay, from where its around 40 employees relentlessly cold-called investors with forex offers, according to a report by The Khaleej Times.
Now, both office spaces have been abandoned, with floors covered in dust, phone wires ripped, and millions in investor funds gone without explanation.
"They (firm management) returned the keys, cleared everything out, and left like they were in a hurry," a security guard at Capital Golden Tower told the publication.
"Now we have people coming daily asking about them," he added.
Indian Among Defrauded
Among the scores of investors who were left in limbo are Kerala expats Mohammad and Fayaz Poyyl, who invested $75,000 between them with Gulf First Commercial Bankers.
"I came here looking for answers, but there's nothing, no one. Just empty offices. We called every number, but no one responded. It's like they never existed," said Poyyl, who went to the firm's office in Capital Golden Tower.
Another Indian investor, Sanjiv, said that Gulf First Commercial Brokers aggressively pushed clients toward Sigma-One Capital -- an unregulated online platform. He said the brokerage firm guaranteed safe returns and repeatedly assured innocent investors to convince them to invest their life savings.
Mohammad, who had invested $50,000 with the firm, said that the company staff used the names Gulf First and Sigma-One interchangeably, claiming they were the same operation.
Most of the investors said they were convinced to put their money into the firm purely through phone conversations. "My relationship manager convinced me to make an initial deposit of $1,000. Over time, I was pressured into adding more funds, lured by the illusion of smooth trading and early profits," Poyyl recalled.
Police Complaint Filed
Police have filed a complaint against both firms--Gulf First and Sigma-One. Investigations into them revealed that Sigma-One Capital operates without authorisation from the Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) or the Securities and Commodities Authority (SCA).
The company claimed it had a registration in St. Lucia in the Caribbean and had a Bur Dubai office in Musalla Tower, but no such office exists. In fact, the probe found that there are no records of the company ever operating there.
Familiar Playbook
The scam follows a familiar pattern seen in earlier fraud cases in the UAE, where residents lost millions to dubious platforms like DuttFx and EVM Prime. The common factor in all these frauds was that all were promoted through cold calls, promising "secure trading environments".
Victims would max out credit cards or take loans, only to discover the companies' Dubai offices were fictional.
