Khaberni - The First Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior of Kuwait directly oversaw the operation to arrest an organized international gang of Arab nationalities involved in electronic fraud, money laundering, bank forgery, and smuggling of crime proceeds through alternative remittance.
The Ministry of Interior stated in a press release that the arrest operation was part of ongoing security efforts to combat electronic fraud and money laundering.
It was reported that the incident began with a complaint from a victim who was subjected to an electronic fraud operation through the information network, and upon conducting the necessary investigations by the General Department of Criminal Investigation, represented by the Hawally Investigation Department, it was found that the withdrawn amounts were used to buy smartphones within the country using an unidentified international number, where the devices are received by representatives and then resold to obtain their cash value.
The investigations clarified that the cash amounts are circulated among several representatives until they reach companies owned by one of the accused, which turned out to be shell companies not engaged in any real activity and are used "as a front for laundering money."
Investigations “Interior”
The investigations revealed that one of the accused left to Jordan as soon as he learned about the exposure of the gang and the arrest of several representatives, where he was detained and brought back to the country on the same day of his travel in cooperation with the Jordanian security authorities concerned.
It was mentioned that the accused confessed to creating shell companies at the request of persons outside the country for the purpose of laundering illicit money, thereby adding an appearance of legitimacy to it and then transferring it to several foreign countries, noting that the investigations showed that the amounts were daily introduced into the bank accounts of the companies of the accused through a money collection company, in addition to him forging fake invoices and presenting them to banks to conceal the money laundering operations.
It was pointed out that the investigations indicated that the total amounts introduced into the bank accounts of the accused's companies during the current month amounted to approximately 6 million Kuwaiti dinars (about 19.652 million US dollars), while estimates suggest that the total money laundered through those companies since their establishment in 2023 exceeded 100 million Kuwaiti dinars (about 327 million dollars).
It was added that the source of those funds comes from the activities of an organized international gang consisting of creating fake websites to defraud citizens and residents inside the State of Kuwait through bank forgery, electronic fraud, alternative remittance, and dealing in amounts of unknown origin.
The “Interior” pointed out that the arrest operation resulted in finding an amount of 108 thousand dinars (about 354 thousand dollars) in the possession of one of the accused before delivering it to the companies of the accused and 9 phones purchased through electronic fraud operations.
Referring 9 Defendants to the Public Prosecution
The Ministry of Interior announced the referral of 9 defendants including the owner of the companies used for money laundering, whose role is limited to registering the companies in his name in exchange for an annual amount, to the Public Prosecution along with the seized monetary amounts and the forged invoices to take the necessary legal actions against them.
It also noted that the legal procedures followed were coordinated with the Central Bank of Kuwait against the company responsible for collecting the monetary amounts linked to the bank accounts of the accused's companies, where the investigations revealed its violation of the activity license granted to it, which is transferring money, by storing the cash amounts in violation of the regulations and conditions in force.
