The Dubai Financial Services Authority (DFSA) has restricted a banker from performing any functions in connection with the provision of financial services in or from the Dubai International Financial Centre.
Arnab Mukherjee was a relationship manager and was found to be a “not fit and proper person” due to his misconduct while working for an unnamed firm in the DIFC, the DFSA said.
According to the regulator, Mukherjee provided clients with misleading and inaccurate letters which contained inaccurate values regarding their assets managed by the firm he was working for.
In one instance Mukherjee forged a client’s signature to initiate investments and provided false account statements to the same client.
By doing so, he started 17 unauthorised investments totalling around $143.9m.
Mukherjee claimed he had entered into unauthorised investments to recover a loss suffered by the client.
In another instance Mukherjee wrote a letter for a client stating that the client’s total assets were around $14m (£10.6m, €12.4m), when the assets were actually $7m, to help his client get a visa.
As a result of these instances of misconduct, the DFSA has now banned Mukherjee from any financial activity in Dubai.
The regulator’s move also comes after its pledged, in its business plan for 2019-2020, to prioritise investigations and enforcement against financial crimes, market abuse and misappropriation and mismanagement of clients’ assets.