Kuwait busts cash-for-forged sponsorship scam
Government employee nabbed for receiving money in return for fake sponsorship
Cairo: Kuwaiti authorities have uncovered attempts led by a civil servant charged with receiving money and using forgery to place expatriates on sponsorship lists without their sponsors’ knowledge.
The scam came to authorities’ attention after a Kuwaiti citizen had filed a legal complaint that he had discovered a foreign worker had been put under his sponsorship without the complainant’s knowledge, a security source said.
In response, police in charge of expatriates’ residency affairs conducted investigations, which concluded that a woman civil servant working at a government service centre stood behind the illegal act.
Investigations, moreover, showed that the woman had been earlier involved in nine similar cases, but the claimants waived their legal action against her.
Initially, the civil servant denied during questioning involvement in the latest incident. But the expat, put under the citizen’s sponsorship, told investigators that he had given money to the woman in return for the unlawful step.
Faced with his admission, she acknowledged she had conducted several transactions, unlawfully placing expats under Kuwaitis’ sponsorship without the latter’s knowledge. Prosecutors ordered her remand pending further interrogation.
The case surfaced as Kuwait is going ahead with a security clampdown on illegal residents.
Last week, Kuwaiti Interior Ministry said more than 1,400 more foreigners had been rounded up in a nationwide crackdown on violators of the country’s residency law.
The ministry has vowed to continue the clampdown across Kuwait and urged the public to report about the illegals and outlaws.
The crackdown got underway after an amnesty deadline for illegal residents expired on June 30.
More than 65,000 such expatriates in Kuwait benefitted from the three-month deadline introduced earlier this year for unlawful residents to readjust their status or face deportation, Chief of the General Directorate for Residency Affairs at the Kuwaiti Interior Ministry Brig Yussuf Al Ayub has said recently.
He added that expats arrested after the expiration of the deadline are deported from the country and will not be allowed to re-enter it. Sponsors of the violators would be blocked from recruiting overseas workers.