Dubai Municipality Social Violation Control Unit inspectors, in cooperation with Dubai Police and the Ministry of Labour, has nabbed 2,108 persons including beggars and street vendors during the ten months from the beginning of the year.

The sweep against the law-breakers had also resulted in the seizure of hundreds of thousands of items which are illegal and detrimental to public health, said Eng. Juma Al Fuqae, Director of Assets Management Department of the Municipality.

He said the efforts of the Social Violation Control Unit under the Markets Section of the Assets Management Department had started from the beginning of this year, and they have been working relentlessly to save the society from all the elements that threaten public safety, social values and welfare of the citizens, residents, tourists and visitors.

The inspectors managed to prevent 236 people, who made begging a job by entering into the country in the name of tourists. The team also nabbed 1,872 street vendors, who abused the civilised appearance of the city. The Municipality team also destroyed 23,719 variety items and 246 counterfeit products that were confiscated, in addition to disposing of 155 tonnes of food that were found unfit for human consumption.

Faisal Juma Al Badaiwi, Head of Markets Management Section said the report of the past ten months proved that the unit had a continuous campaign to catch the law breakers.

The campaign, conducted in collaboration with the Department of Public Health and Safety and the Dubai Police Criminal investigation Department, included daily spot checks in response to the information and raids on places where violators were gathering as well as catching the violators and handing them over to the competent security authorities according to the legal procedures followed.

Giving further breakup of the statistics, he noted that the team seized 155 tonnes of damaged foodstuff, which the offenders intended to sell to the workers at the labour camps in Al Quoz or Al Qusais.

"The seized items also included 101 kilogrammes of paan, 97 unhealthy palm seedlings, 554 illegal accessories and 162 carts. All these were seized during the 5,942 inspections conducted throughout the year," said Al Badaiwi.