A solicitor has been struck off for stealing iPhones at the Dubai airport. Shashi Gorsia, who was head of Family Law at Pindoria Solicitors in the UK, committed the theft in a moment of opportunistic madness in 2016. 

The victim of the theft was travelling from Dubai to Beirut with four iPhone 7s. He accidentally left two of them at the check-in counter after he unpacked them to prevent his baggage being overweight. But when he realised he was missing the phones he returned, only to find they had vanished. Or, more accurately, had been lifted by a light-fingered solicitor.

The duty stewardess explained to the man that after he left, two British individuals arrived at the counter, saw the iPhone boxes and popped them into a bag. The airport investigations department tracked down the pair, Gorsia and a friend, and detained them them at the departure gates.

After being searched, Gorsia admitted that he had put the phones in his friend's bag, but said that he had done so with a view to looking for the owner of the phones to return the items. However, at the time he was stopped, Gorsia had already gone through passport control and security and was heading for the departure gate for his flight to London. So it is not clear how he was planning to find the owner of the phones - who was travelling to Beirut.


In January 2017 a Dubai court sentenced Gorsia to one month in prison followed by immediate deportation.  

Gorsia notified the SRA of his misconduct. The regulator prosecuted Gorsia before the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal in July this year. The tribunal found that the family law partner had breached his position of trust as a solicitor and director at Pindoria Solicitors. It ordered that Gorsia be struck from the roll and ordered that he pay the SRA's costs of £8,500 (which equates to the cost of about 15 iPhone 7s).

Gorsia is not the first lawyer to be questioned about the contents of his luggage, nor is he the first to be struck off for pinching something from an airport

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Comments

Anon-y-mous 09 August 19 11:45

@Anon 09:30 - You mean Beirut...the most incredible place in the Middle East. By day - full of great history and incredible scenery, by night - best party city ever.

Kevin Robjent 10 August 19 14:49

A, Solicitor should,be without any Scrutiny,to ever to be, bought to his,her front door. They, should be Guardians of the Law and a Pillar,of our Society and Laws.No,excuse is acceptable,and rightly has, been disbarred.

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