18

  They sat around drinking, except Bashir. He had brought a full change of freshly ironed traditional Sudanese robes, and went off to shower and change.

  “Now you’re a full member of the Little Sheikhs’ Club,” said Jamal. “Welcome, brother.”

  Bashir, in his finery, hurried out of the bedroom, said goodbye, and rushed off. “He’s going for Friday prayers,” said Jamal. Chad began to laugh uncontrollably. So did the other three.

  “Explain how this happened,” demanded Chad. “I do not understand at all.” So, as they drank on, the original members of the Little Sheikhs’ Club began to explain.

  “Very serious problems,” said Larry, “get programmed the precise moment people take money from banks here. It could be personal loan, car loan, credit card, or whatever. Not just our money; any bank is the same. You see, in the Middle East, banks don’t check on background or financial status of loan applicants. We give the three C’s to practically anyone who asks. Simple application forms, minimal details, and, unless our computer already contains objectionable data on an applicant, the entire thing takes merely one or two days to process.”

  “Three C’s?”

  “Cash, cars and credit cards,” said Jamal.

  “And we don’t check a person thoroughly?”

  “Many people, with absolutely no assets, are given huge sums. completely disproportionate to financial standing,” said Larry. “Collection hangs solely on the fourth C.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Cheques - blank, undated cheques, that every bank demands.”

  “Isn’t that illegal?”

  “Not in this part of the world. Where the fuck do you think we live, Chad? Europe? But I’ll walk you through the steps, so that you understand clearly. Imagine a newcomer to the country, one who’s landed a job in a well-established local company. Because his employer is a well-established company, banks are prepared to immediately give him a car loan, credit cards, and a personal loan of up to thirty-six times his salary. Nobody cares, either, how deep into debt the man goes, or that his only means of repayment is his monthly salary. And why does nobody care? Because, when he takes his car, he leaves behind monthly cheques against installments; when he gets credit cards, he gives undated cheques to the value of his credit limit on each card; and to get his loan, he hands over a blank signed cheque to the bank. These are called security cheques.

  “Loans are given only when applicants assign end-of-service benefits to lending banks, thereby ensuring that employers become legally bound to inform banks of any change, let’s call it unfavourable change, in employment status. The strange thing is that, although, in the paperwork, no link exists between loan and job, the fact is that no bank allows a personal loan to run its course when a debtor changes jobs.”

  “And it doesn’t matter if only a couple of installments remain,” added Jamal. “After thirty-four months of trouble free repayment, we still screw debtors.”

  “How?” asked Chad. “If a debtor is not a defaulter, what can his bank do?”

  “Bounce his security cheque,” said Chuck. “Banks here are all fucked up, Chad, yours included.”

  “You mean, fill up his blank cheque and deposit it?”

  “Absolutely right,” grinned Larry.

  “Then what?”

  “Then hell. Our Recovery Cell comes into the picture,” said Jamal. “We evaluate and advise the loans and legal people how to proceed.”

  “But when you bounce a cheque, there still has to be a court case, or no?”

  “Court case comes later, Chad,” said Larry. “The moment a cheque is bounced, the debtor becomes a criminal. A court case only confirms that, at some later stage. We get our power through the travel ban.”

  “What the fuck is that?”

  “Ah, not allowed to exit the country, what else? It’s the most important tool in our hands. If a debtor cannot fly out, he cannot change his visa. If he cannot change his visa, he cannot take up his new job. If he cannot take up his new job, he has no job. If he has no job, he has no money. If he has no money, he can never, ever repay us. Unless he repays us he cannot travel. Until he travels he cannot…, get it? It’s the Gulf Arab catch - human fish.”

  “We watanis are legal hostage takers,” said Jamal gleefully, gulping beer.

  “But can’t customers go to court, show contracts and payment schedules, and get favourable rulings?”

  “No, never,” said Larry. “A bounced cheque is always current dated, as we ourselves write in dates. No record of security cheques exist in loan contracts, and banks never issue receipts.”

  “Still, what can you do that he fears you so much?”

  “Simple, Chad. We demand full repayment immediately, never agree any terms, and unless he goes on the run, stick the bastard in jail. Going on the run works out to going nowhere really, because of the travel ban. Bouncing a cheque curtails the right of courts to intervene. Locals have rather simple interpretations of law, and totally non-humanitarian. You issued a cheque dated yesterday for such and such amount, pay immediately or go to jail. The worst thing is that you stay in jail for however long it takes, including forever, until the amount gets paid or waived.

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  “Bank issues have created more long-term inmates in prisons here, than all other issues and crimes combined. When sheikhs proclaim royal pardons, mass-releasing prisoners, because of severe overcrowding in their jails, murderers and drug dealers get off, but innocent people shafted by banks stay in jail. Loans simply must be repaid. That’s the source of the incredible power in the hands of decision makers, on whether a defaulter should be allowed to carry on with his life, or whether he should lose it to the system.’

  “In Citizenbank,” said Jamal, “that’s us.”

  “Our little cell decides who stays out and who goes in,” said Larry. “Stay out, and you have a shot at life. Go in, and you’re gone for good. What happened to the Arab? He was switching to a better job. It’s clear that if he changes to a better job, our money becomes safer. But as soon as Loans Department was informed of his resignation, which is what trapped him, as a visa change had to be made, his file was automatically forwarded to us, to recommend a course of action.” Larry paused and looked around.

  “The Little Sheikhs’ Club,” he continued, “was founded by the Recovery Cell, as an end product of dirty jokes Jamal was exchanging with a Sri Lankan defaulter. One thing led to another, when we suddenly saw the real possibility of screwing his wife. We immediately threw him into jail, and kept him there until he cracked. He had to. He had no means of coming up with the money. She wasn’t the best we’ve had, but hot and young she certainly was.”

  “Is Chuck with Citizenbank? I haven’t seen him around.”

  “Chuck’s with the CIA,” replied Larry. “He caught us in that very first fuck session.”

  They laughed at the memory. Jamal spoke. “Chuck had set up a listening post in the apartment to the left, trying to bust an illegal arms deal, advanced electronic shit, man. He heard and recorded whatever we were up to, came around, blackmailed us, and got into the bitch, ha, ha.”

  “Then he taught us about soundproofing, and now you can’t hear a thing outside the apartment,” said Larry, and the three original members doubled up, laughing.

  “CIA, huh?” said Chad. “I met Ronald at an embassy party. You work with him?”

  “Nah, I’ve got nothing to do with the Dubai office,” replied Chuck. “I’m always on special assignment, and report direct to Langley.”

  “And the arms deal? Did you bust it?”

  “Almost bust my balls,” laughed Chuck. “Sheikhs were involved, and Langley came down hard on me.”

  “So who thought up the name of the club?”

  “We called ourselves the Little Sheikhs’ Club,” said Larry, “because we figured we have as much power, over life and death, as the rulers of the land, the big sheikhs, except that they have power over us, too; so, of course, we’re only little sheikhs, ha, ha.” Everybody laughed.

  “When we summon defaulters, we first check on natural responses, to identify timid and vulnerable souls. It can’t work to press aggressive or suicidal types. When we find a potential candidate, we check out his resources, look for weaknesses, probe and research. Does he have family, beyond wife and kids? We look for brothers, sisters, uncles; people who might intervene with money and get him out of our hands. We check how long the bastard has been in the country, whether he has good friends, property back home, insurance policies he might cash, a fully paid up car he could sell, unused credit limits on cards issued by other banks. We check for anything that might allow him to save himself from us.

  “Mind you, we don’t go that deep, unless we think we can use him. Young and newly married, or old enough to have a teenage daughter, those we check. When we’re sure our target has no recourse, resource or safety net, and has someone we want to enjoy, we strike. Our official tone changes, and we threaten him. Some, we get the police to pick up, use the law to soften the motherfuckers up. It’s a dance, and we’ve perfected the steps. Then we demand. Sometimes it’s wife, sometimes daughter, and sometimes, if the person is a young female, quite common, it could be that we require she give herself to us. But don’t get me wrong, Chad. This is not activity we conduct daily. It’s rare. So far we’ve had a grand total of nineteen, including today’s Arab.”

  “Yes,” added Jamal, “we have to be very careful. Remember, we would have assessed our target absolutely thoroughly. We do not demand sex, if the slightest chance of escape exists. We cannot have people complaining.”

  “No one escapes?” asked Chad.

  “That cannot happen,” said Larry. “If we make a demand, and our target escapes, we’ll be ruined. We are very careful, and thus we enjoy, as Jamal says. When they take what looks like easy money, they should know that there are strings attached.”

  “Ropes around their necks,” laughed Chuck.

  Debtors languishing in Dubai's prisons

  Hussein Ali Mubarak sits in prison, surrounded by murderers and burglars. His crime: defaulting on his bank loans.

  More than 1,200 people in Dubai's central jail -- about 40 percent of the prison population -- have been convicted of not repaying money borrowed from banks so they could get married, buy a car or house, or invest in the stock market.

  Last year, banks here granted $43 million in personal loans -- many with only an undated, blank check as collateral.

  The case of Mubarak, a 28-year-old Emirati, is typical. He was working 12-hour shifts as a crane operator in Dubai's port when he took his first bank loan to buy a car and furniture. Even though he fell behind in the payments, he still managed to get two more loans from two different banks, each bigger than the one before.

  He paid off one of the loans but stopped making payments on the other two. After he ignored court summons, the bank deposited the blank check he had presented as his sole collateral. The check bounced and he was sentenced to three months in jail.

  He'll stay there longer if no one steps forward to pay his $44,700 debt.

  "If they cannot pay, we cannot release them," said Lt. Col. Abdulhalim Mohammed al Hashimi of the Dubai Central Prison.

  In the United States, a similar case would head to bankruptcy court, where the debtor would have a chance to sell off assets and restructure debts to slowly pay them back.

  But in Dubai, with no laws regulating defaults on personal borrowing, a person jailed for such an infraction is likely to remain there -- even when their sentence is over -- until a relative, charity group, wealthy businessman or even a member of the ruling family pays off the debt.

  "The notion that these people in jail are poor lambs being preyed upon is rubbish," said Louis A. Scotto, general manager of Emirates Bank. "We are not the bad guys here."

  Scotto said banks do not turn to customers' blank checks except as a last resort. Dubai's police say once that happens, there is little choice but to imprison them.

  "They signed a check without balance. That is a crime," said Khalid Ahmed Omer, a legal adviser to the Dubai police. "If there is no check, no one can take you to jail. But if you signed a check, you are responsible, not the bank."

  Dubai Central Jail is vast; the prison houses 3,000 inmates, 42 per cent of whom are there for the crime of defaulting on bank loans.