Latest news with #KD1.1
Gulf Insider
10-04-2025
- Business
- Gulf Insider
Kuwait: Government Staffer Jailed, Fined $3.5 Million In Bribery Case
A Kuwaiti court has sentenced a government employee to seven years in prison and ordered him to pay KD1.1 million (around $3.5 million) in a bribery case amid a relentless anti-corruption crackdown in the country. The defendant, the head of a department at a ministry, was charged with illegally awarding KD296,000 worth contracts to a company and obtaining half of the amount in bribes, the Kuwaiti news portal Mediacourt reported. The criminal Court also ordered the defendant be dismissed from his job. In the same case, the court handed down a similar jail sentence to an expatriate accomplice and ordered his deportation from the country after serving the term. It was not clear when the case surfaced. In recent years, Kuwait has stepped up anti-corruption efforts, bringing several suspects to court. Last month, a Kuwaiti court sentenced two expatriates to varying jail terms including a lifer, on charges of money laundering. The Criminal Court handed down a life sentence to the prime defendant, a head of the accounting unit at a company in which the state has a 25% stake. The court also ordered the defendant, an Egyptian national, be dismissed from his job, and pay KD2 million in a fine, amounting to a double of the money he is accused of laundering after seizing it from the company. The second defendant, an American national, was given seven years in prison on charges of collusion with the prime accused in exchange for obtaining 5% of the stolen money. In another case, the Criminal Court sentenced in March a Kuwaiti doctor in absentia to five years in prison and fined him KD1 million on charges of fraud after he had been found to have unlawfully received his monthly salary while living abroad for 15 years.
Gulf Insider
10-02-2025
- Gulf Insider
Kuwaiti Jailed, Fined $3.5M Over Fraud And Money Laundering
A Kuwaiti man has been sentenced to five years in prison and fined KD1.1 million ($3.5 million) after he was convicted of fraud and money laundering, Kuwaiti media has reported. The man was found guilty of defrauding an unspecified number of people of their money in connection to phantom projects, the specifics of which were not revealed In a separate case, Kuwait's top appeals court has handed down a three-year imprisonment term with labour to a lawyer on charges of fraud and forgery. The Court of Cassation convicted the lawyer of forging a title deed of a building in Iraq inherited by a Kuwaiti man of whom he had defrauded KD45,000. The ruling is final. There has recently been a rise in fraud cases in Kuwait despite repeated warnings from authorities to citizens and expatriates to be on guard against potential fraudsters and their ruses, Al Qabas newspaper has quoted what it termed as a well-informed source. Cases related to real-estate scams top the swindle list, followed by bogus investment deals inside Kuwait or abroad, and fraud linked to luxury car purchases. Last December, the Court of Cassation sentenced seven expatriates to seven years in prison each on charges of money laundering, fraud, and embezzlement. The top court also ordered the defendants — two Europeans and five Arabs — to be deported after serving their sentences. The defendants were found guilty of participating in a Europe-based fraud ring. The case came to light after a Kuwaiti citizen filed a legal complaint alleging he was swindled out of KD157,000) when two of the defendants tricked him by phone into making financial transactions via electronic platforms.
