Dubai drink scam - organized crime

Last night I fell for it... the typical Dubai drink scam. Where a girl invites you over to a bar, orders some simple tequila shot and they force you to pay 4000 AED (!).

Of course I immediately reported it to my credit card company which will hopefully work. I also studied the case more and discovered there is an organization behind this for a while now.

Currently, they are operating from cowboy restobar located in the Hyde Hotel Dubai. The method operandi is they open a new bar or restaurant and use fake profiles to create positive 5 star reviews. They hire girls (on the basis of commission) to take guys out on a date In the bar, subsequently boosting the bill.

I compared the paper used for the bill and found the exact paper used in the exact same type of business on multiple occasions. There is clearly an organization or crime ring behind this.

The same scam was run from:

Medallo DXB

Xo Night Club

I also filled a report with Dubai police online which all the evidence linking the cases. Now the curious question is; do they not care enough to catch the criminals or are they simply incapable?

EDIT/UPDATE

The owner contacted me and I used his phone number to look around, he discovered the same guy is/was running Zahira Lounge & Vision Club Lounge among others. same story; many fake reviews and many reviews of guys who lost money through girls from Tinder.

Yesterday another guy posted a review about Cowboy bar and got an exact 4000 AED bill for tequila shots.

Does anyone have a good contact for a journalist who can talk to me to expose all of this? Or someone in the police office? I have his full contact details + the full details of the girl as well by using reverse search.

UPDATE 2

Good news! The bar is closed after only being open for a few days, all the attention online helped. I also managed to connect the same owner to at least 3 other establishments. For anyone who got scammed, contact your credit card company and file a complaint with the Dubai crime unit, they are investigating this now: [[email protected]](mailto:[email protected])

With enough public attention they will do something about this. From what I see millions have been scammed by this and other organisations