The DARK SIDE of DUBAI

It's all caviar, Cristal and Chanel bags on Instagram, but some influencers in the Emirates city are selling sex to fund their lavish lifestyles

To her hundreds of thousands of followers, the influencer personifies the hallucinatory extravagance of a luxury Dubai lifestyle. Regularly posting pictures of champagne, couture outfits and private jets, peppered with motivational quotes and the occasional bikini shot, she claims to work in the fashion industry.

But to a businessman who introduced himself as a friend of a friend, her real job seems quite different. “Do you pay for presents? 4000 euros. Yes or no,” she replied almost instantly after he sent her a private message on Instagram. “I had 10,000 last night. Do you think you’re so famous and handsome that you get a discount?”

Drawn by winter sun, non-existent income tax, relatively loose pandemic restrictions and easy-to-obtain visas, thousands of influencers have arrived in the past few years, flooding social media with posts extolling the glamorous possibilities of life in the emirate.

They depict a world in which beach-club visits, Bollinger and oysters by the dozen are weekday fare, and evenings are spent with the world’s ultra-rich, which now includes the thousands of Russians who have poured into the city since the war in Ukraine began. In late 2022, they were joined by football fans from across the world who wanted to stay in Dubai while going to World Cup matches in neighbouring Qatar.

For a gleaming city of glass and steel that 70 years ago did not have electricity or running water, the aspirational imagery is marketing dynamite.