40 YEARS IN UAE… NOW BANKRUPT. How UAE Indian Businessman Lost Everything

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]In this video, I'll give you an update with regards to my friend Silva. You know, the guy who started in UAE from zero, became a millionaire, but then lost everything and today he's in a deep deep, very deep debt. I'll give you the update about him. Feel free to share your comments and thoughts below. And the reason why I'm sharing this with you is uh specifically for those of you who have been following up with me who are interested and also to caution you that not everyone who goes to Dubai achieves the Dubai dream or you know like some of you have this um tendency to believe if you lived in the Gulf for or the Middle East for 20 30 years you should have made a lot of money by now or you should have been smart enough to save. This story will provide you uh with a cautionary tale that life doesn't always go as predicted. Okay. Um just to first give you a brief in case you do not know who I'm talking about or what I'm talking about. Selva was a guy who who came to UAE in the '90s. Okay. Remember the 80s and '90s were the golden years of UAE. Whoever came to UAE would not only get a job but he would also get promoted within the ranks because Dubai or UAE was a very simple place you know camels and uh not hi-fi technology those were the pre- internet days and um the cost of living was very cheap people were very simple I told you uh my mother used to literally go and meet the shakes's wives all right uh we came there in the 80s so Salva came in the '90s and obviously uh by the way he's kite Muslim Just like every other Keral Muslim, he took up any job just to start uh his life. And why I said Karite Muslim? They are very businessminded.

[00:01:38]They always want to start up a business, grocery shop, tea shop, cafeteria, something or another. So uh he decided to start up a u you know company selling you know buying and selling things whether it was perfumes or t-shirts or uh you know stuff that you know you just hope you buy it cheap and you sell at a profit. No rocket science there. My mother also did it but in my mother's case it eventually went in a loss. These companies or these kind of shops don't survive for very long. So he started off um and eventually you know he kind of realized some things were selling some things not selling. So he kept experimenting children's clothes uh perfumes uh you know whatever whatever he could get. Literally it is like having a convenience store but you know a mom pop kind of shop. Uh but he had opened it in Karama area of Dubai. um that is the area where mostly people who earn mid to lower incomes okay middle- class groups are there Filipinos Bangladeshies Pakistanis Indians Sri Lankans and u they are always looking for cheap and affordable things or where they can save some money uh and then it so happened that the uh mobile phone craze started I don't know you can Google searches Alcatel uh there was a mobile phone company um you know Nokia communicator it was called the compass box phone you You can just Google search you'll see a 9300950.

[00:02:58]It is a compass box phone. So I had started my career uh officially with a working visa as a shopkeeper. So that is how I bumped into his shop. His shop was near to the shop I was working. My shop was uh selling home theater systems. Uh I made an old video of it. If you want me to make a refresher one, I'll tell you. I started my career as a kind of indoor salesperson, okay, for a shop. I just had to watch movies. I was enjoying my life and you know get the girl secretly when the owner was not there.

[00:03:26]But the clientele were all people from Emerald Airlines who wanted DVDs, you know, DVD players. Um, those days there was uh DVD player, there was a mixer, there was a cassette deck, there was a CD player, you know, the complete stack.

[00:03:40]If you are in the 80s, you know what I'm talking about. So, he used to sell all those stuff. Um, you can check these u uh these products. Denon o Enio O N K Y O I think Eno Philips DVD players or amplifiers you know for sound systems and speakers and all that. Um so those were the days. Okay. Um so you know obviously I was earning a very small income. So obviously I wanted to you know always upgrade my phone and uh but I didn't have the money to buy a brand new phone. So this guy was very smart, enterprising and intelligent whereby he saw there was a market for you know secondhand phones. People would buy phones but there was nowhere to sell it.

[00:04:19]Remember this is just when the dialup internet started 23 uh kilobytes per second you know it was the telephone ringing noise. If you are in the 80s you would know what I'm talking about.

[00:04:29]Internet was very slow that time. There was no not even there was Google there was Yahoo Yahoo search. Okay. So he was you know very um you could say enterprising. So he started this business of buying phones that he wanted to sell and selling these secondhand phones. and he taught himself how to you know repair phones by himself. He was very proactive. Um kite Muslims know that way they are very very smart and sharp. He actually taught himself you know how to fix the circuitry and all that. And he got a guy was into repairing. So he would learn from him and they that is how they would sell and very soon his shop became only mobile phones accessories uh you know covers and you know earphones and whatever. So that is how I bumped into his shop and uh I used to always uh check which is the next upgrade and you know he would take the old phone and give me the new phone I would pay the difference. So that is how we continued and remember I was 20 years old then and uh we continued this friendship. So when I climbed up my career uh every time there was a brand new phone that was a golden age of phones uh iPhone had just come out. Oh my goodness what madness it was when iPhone came out. people were queuing outside the iPhone store for I think two weeks and it became a kind of a trend until you know they overdid it where every time there was a launch people would camp outside an Apple store for 2 weeks just imagine 2 weeks now people are stupid you know because people used to think that uh the phone will sell off and then uh you know other competing brands came old brands disappeared so I used to keep buying from him and eventually shop size started to grow uh he took I think uh first he had a small shop. Then obviously he transferred to a new area nearby but it was a bigger shop and he was doing pretty well and he was a very good person. He was a very good friend to me and then eventually got married and then he had a kid and um everything was fine. That is until I think um you know imagine u 15 years passed by I'm still in touch with him. However, one fine day when I did come and meet him I saw him pretty crest fallen. I so I'm pretty worried and I asked him what's happening and he told me that business has been bad because now people are you know uh copying his style of business and copycat businesses were a dime a dozen if your business would do well and there were 10 shops that were empty in Dubai UAE this was a very common phenomenon or UAE in general if you have a mobile shop with and you're doing well within a month another mobile shop will come within another few days another mobile shop soon there'll be 20 mobile shop phones and what happened was because he was selling secondhand phones and accessories. It didn't take rocket science to open this. So, there were many competitors and then Lulu uh which was becoming a very big brand. They started buying in bulk and giving prices that nobody could beat. But I would continue supporting him. But he said he was finding it very hard to manage the expenses. By that time Dubai was also booming. So the rent got literally doubled every few months or every few years. Cost of living was going up and uh he was finding it hard. Okay. So remember this is like uh um at the age of say 30 I'm 50 now at the age of 30 he started tell me the costs were very high okay and then um I remember before going leaving to Thailand I obviously obviously said bye to quite a number of people and he was one of them and uh he still was worried about the business he was thinking of selling it off or getting a partner whatever so then I told him I'm going to Thailand he said we'll be in touch once however after I reached Thailand I found out that uh when I spoke to him I called him how is business. The lawyer complete disaster.

[00:08:01]So I said what happened? Apparently he had got a partner but that partner cheated him of all his money and um had issued checks and whatever cheated his suppliers and um he ended up in you know just imagine from zero he made millions millions in the sense he's not a multi-millionaire let's say 1 million let's say he made 1 million dirhams Aed and u you know one second after he made 1 million he got this uh you know business started to go down so obviously he was eating from his savings he had purchased property everything else but in order to survive He kept eating from his savings into the business. But then he realized if I'm going to spend everything I saved, then I'll end up with zero. So he got a partner to bring new lifeblood into the business or creativity or expand his market share.

[00:08:43]But just the opposite happened. The guy cheated him, cleaned up his bank account. I don't know how, maybe forged the signature, um issued fake check. So obviously he's a partner. He was held accountable and he had to sell off his house. He had to sell off his land. He had to sell off everything just to pay off everyone. He had a choice to run away. Seriously, he had a choice to run away. and not pay all this but he chose to be a man of integrity which you know honestly I question the decision even though it's something that you admire but just imagine you are in your 20s or 30s when you come to UAE and now you're in your 50s and now you are forget zero you're minus say a million what do you do and then he had to obviously shut down his business and uh the last thing I knew was he worked as an accountant for a man who was you know hoping to retire with millions now he's earning less than $1,000 as an accountant working as a junior staff for another person. And I told him, "Boss, you're getting only 3,000 dirhams or just, you know, around $1,000. You have a wife to take care of. You have, you know, two kids to take care of. What are you going to save?" In fact, he was hardly saving zero. So, that was where the conversation ended the last time.

[00:09:47]However, this time when I spoke to him and I asked him, "What is the update?

[00:09:50]What's going on?" Just because, you know, I'm his well-wisher. the poor fellow I mean you know lightning strikes twice like you know um he started off yet another business um you know because he knew that if you work as an employee with $1,000 it's not going to make it he started up another business and um you know during oh by the way I forgot during co he started and because co everything shut down that went into a loss means much more smaller and this time when he started a business this time everything was just picking up and now the Iran war has started and um it seems that he has got very badly hit. Uh suppliers, payments, money being locked, bad debts, and um you know, I could literally feel he wanted to break down on the phone and cry. Um I mean, how much can a man go through? Hell yeah. I was like, "Fuck, man. This is like you know, first partner cheated him, then COVID, and now this Iran war." He was like, "Lord, what do I do?" You know, just his voice was crackling up. I'm pretty sure he was crying. I I didn't know what to tell him. Didn't know what to tell him. You know, it's so easy to give people motivational talks or say, you know, try try till you succeed. What do you tell this poor guy? And no fault of his own, you know, uh the partner cheating him, co and now this war. I I honestly for the first time in my life, I just had to keep quiet. Anyway, we ended the conversation with a massive vacuum of void and um I just sat down thinking completely speechless like what the [ __ ] yeah. And just imagine, you know, if you and I were to go through something like how do we survive?

[00:11:13]Imagine someone who lost all their savings with a fire or a partner cheating them or they got an accident, they got paralyzed. It's terrible. And the reason why I'm sharing this is not to depress you guys but to tell you that you know sometimes it's very easy for us to talk oh you know I achieved success and all that but remember those we listen to these success inspirational stories on YouTube. Sometimes you don't listen to such stories which are real which most of the people go through and they are too ashamed to share about it online. Anyway, this is what I wanted to share with you guys. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. What do you think? Um and you know what do you tell someone like anyway I just hope nothing but the best for him and um if you believe in prayers and you believe in God do pray for people like him.

[00:11:52]That's all I can say. Look forward to reading your comments. You guys take care. This is me signing off. by