Free Sheikhs, Lies and Real Estate: The Untold Story of Dubai by JR Roth

egomaniacs,
showing little regard for their host country’s customs and etiquettes without an
ounce of shame.
    From 2002, over 120,000 British expats came to
Dubai in pursuit of sun, sea, sand and tax-free cash. Many were serial property
investors looking to recycle their cash in the ‘next big thing’. Others were tax
evaders, VAT fraudsters and money launderers wanting to clean their money and
their reputations. Most were undervalued middle-class professionals trying to
revamp their flagging careers and upgrade their lifestyles in a new untapped and
skill deficient market.
    Lured by generous tax-free packages of inflated
salaries, housing allowances and company cars, these Brits lived wonderfully
indulgent lifestyles with an active social calendar of glamorous brunches,
dinner parties, BBQs, nightclubs and beach clubs. They lived in newly built
apartments and villas in exclusive gated communities, kept a housemaid and a
chef, drove a gas-guzzling 4x4, and dined at the restaurants of the globe’s
finest chefs. They played golf on world-class courses and shopped in the most
luxurious malls on the planet. Life was dynamic and exciting and the sun shone
every day of the year. It was a far cry from the drudgery of city life in
London, Birmingham or Manchester. In Dubai, the Brits found themselves at the
top of the social food chain based on the colour of their skin and their
passports, and they lived like royalty.
    This expat influx was not new. Western workers
had been relocating to the Middle East since the early 1970s on short-term
contracts to meet huge skill shortages, particularly in the booming oil and gas
and construction industries. Back then a position in Saudi, Kuwait or Abu Dhabi
was considered a hardship post; a sacrifice made by the employee for his
company in return for a generous salary and benefits package. But there was
nothing ‘hard’ about living in new Dubai. The desert had become a playground
for wealthy expats to enjoy every excess and vice they could fathom. Ten years
ago a contract in the Gulf was an opportunity to save for retirement; today
expats were piling up on credit cards to supplement their overblown salaries and
fund an extravagant and indulgent lifestyle. With the added opportunity to own
their properties and invest in the booming real estate market, the Gulf was no
longer just a temporary stopgap for expats, but somewhere to place roots and
build a future.
    Every outrageous whim and desire of Dubai’s
affluent Western community was met by an army of foreign migrant workers from
India, Pakistan and the Philippines, who formed an often invisible blue-collar
underclass of helpers and servants. They worked inhumane hours bagging
groceries, pumping petrol and running errands for measly wages to support their
own poverty-stricken families back home. They were nervously attentive and
unreservedly committed to please, driven by an ever-looming fear of upsetting
their fickle overlords and, worse still, being replaced.
    When they were not stuck in the office, on a
building site or in an endless traffic jam, the preferred citadels of
entertainment of the Western expat were the city’s grand hotels. Each of them
featured an eclectic selection of fine-dining restaurants, fully licensed bars
and poolside shisha lounges where the social elite would flock after
work and at weekends to meet, drink and be seen. The luxury beach hotels of
Jumeirah featured pool bars, cocktail waiters and afternoon BBQs, while sun-starved
tourists roasted for hours under the scorching desert sun. And as night fell
over the desert, the hotels hosted exotic themed events offering indulgent buffets,
wine tasting and live entertainment, attracting expats in their hordes to eat,
drink, and hobnob late into the night.
    But the undisputed weekly highlight of the
discerning Dubai expat’s social calendar was the infamous Friday brunch.
Against the echoes of the Muslim call to prayer on the holiest day of the
Islamic week, the