Beggars in Dubai are earning up to £55,000 a month by asking for handouts on the streets, officials have said.
Many of the vendors and so-called ‘smart beggars’ in the city travel to the UAE on three-month visas and stay illegally for time after, Dubai Police said.
Major-General Khalil Ebrahim Al Mansouri, Assistant Commander-in-Chief for Criminal Investigation Affairs of Dubai Police, said street vending is illegal.
Many of the vendors so-called ‘smart beggars’ in Dubai travel to the UAE on three-month visas and stay illegally for time after, police said, with some making up to £55,000 a month (file photo)
‘Most of street vendors are staying illegally in the country and they cause danger,’ he told the Gulf News.
He added: ‘They reflect [an] uncivilised image of the city. If they commit crimes then it will be hard for officers to trace them as there is no data or fingerprints to investigate.’
Mansouri warned that the items being sold could be expired or sold illegally.
‘It is another way of begging and people shouldn’t encourage them by buying their goods. Society must cooperate with police by alerting us [the authorities] about them,’ he said.
Authorities said that in 2017, 34,881 people were arrested for staying illegally and street vending, which is down from the previous year, where 49,205 people were arrested.
Among those arrested in 2017, 2,355 were street vendors and were 1,840 beggars.
Authorities said that in 2017, 34,881 people were arrested for staying illegally. Among those arrested, 2,355 were street vendors and were 1,840 beggars
In 2016, police arrested a beggar who was making more than £55,000 a month on the streets.
The man was a ‘tourist’ with a valid three-month visa.
‘Through our calculations, we found that the beggar earned an average of almost Dh9,000 (£1,800) per day, which is equivalent to Dh1,500 (£305) per hour and a half,’ Faisal Al Badiawi, Head of Markets Section at the municipality, said at the time.
Badiawi told the Khaleej Times: ‘But we believe that more money was collected on Fridays, especially if they were standing in front of mosques.’
In one campaign to stop people from begging across the country, Dubai officials found many people had entered on legal visas.
‘Some of the beggars were carrying passports issued with business or tourist visas. In the campaign, we found that the majority of beggars had entered the country legally with a three-month visa, in order to collect as much money as they could during their time here,’ Badaiwi said.